He doesn’t have too much to worry about, he’s going nowhere. Do feel free to bring this up if he does leave, but all signs would suggest he’s here for a while yet. The biggest, neons-included sign is how quick Lambert is to turn to him once he’s nearing fitness. It helps that Zak repays his manager’s faith with outstanding performances, too.

He’s our most all-round centre-back, as comfortable with the ball on the floor as he is with it in the air. He can saunter out from the back, he doesn’t do it as purposefully as Ward but he does it comfortably enough. Likewise, he can and will compete in the air with the best of them.

Every centre-back makes mistakes and unfortunately for defenders they’re second only to goalkeepers for suffering the consequences so it’s unfair to pinpoint rare errors. Zak reads the game well- better than our others- so they don’t happen often, he makes vital blocks as regularly as anyone and isn’t averse to putting his head in where it could get hurt. In the long run he will also be good for Bennett.

With Bennett’s arrival, we seem to have secured ourselves some good centre-backs for the foreseeable future at least. Zak and Ward aren’t anywhere near the brow of the hill and Bennett and Ayala have only recently left base camp. It’s all looking rather rosy.

Also, Barnett appears to be unfancied by Lambert and could well be searching for pastures new, especially with Russell Martin seemingly ahead of him in the queue. With departing it’s unlikely there’ll be more.

Fox can hardly do anymore to warrant a new contract, after having his doubters he’s swung them round into alignment. I still haven’t quite fathomed how you could fail to rate the man, but at least the rest have got there in the end.

There must be question marks over the other out-of-contract-ers though. Wilbraham is doing as much as he can, Drury is well, Drury. Elliott Ward appears to be nestled with Zak in Lambert’s good books (he’s in mine too, if you care) and Declan Rudd has been unfortunate with his injury coming at a time when he was due some exposure. It was just as unfortunate that Steer made his mark felt but I’d expect him to stay for another year at least though.

The one thing that is for sure, I wouldn’t like to be the one making these decisions.

The stat of choice at the beginning of the season that he ran a lot appeared to blinker people of the fact that he’s a fairly limited footballer. He’s done a job, and he’s put the effort in but he can’t have been one of those kids kicking the ball against a wall honing his touch for hours on end. Actually, he may have done but was forever chasing the ball after he miscontrolled one of his wayward passes.

Maybe I’m blinkered. A purist, spoilt by Fox and his three-passes-ahead-of-the-game approach but Johnson is simply not my kind of player. I’m not against ball winners, but a ball winner needs to have the ability to use the ball he’s just won. Or sit him next to a Fox, as I had thought we would have done.

Whether Johnson is in yellow and green next season remains to be seen, if it was toss up between Crofts and him I’d go for the Welshman every time. He has more to his game, plus he seems to work better with Fox. And we all know Fox can’t leave. I’d be a broken man if he did.

Naturally, I’d start Fox every week. With the wind swirling around he would have kept the ball on the deck and moving, but more importantly he would have given our defence an outlet ball.

It was good to see the other ex-Leeds man Howson though, and he did as much he could. It can’t be easy running back and forth as the ball is constantly above your head. It must have also been a tough match to referee, what with so much grappling going on. It would have probably been better to just leave them at it, and not helped by the hypocritical Stoke crowd appealing for everything.

It was another notable substitute appearance for Wilbraham too, despite Morison warming up for about 85 minutes of the game. Again, we can have no complaints with the big man when he came on, tireless running and he won most of the balls he competed for. It was most notable though for him being turned to ahead of Morison, again.

Part of me is also glad Etherington was on the pitch. The game would have been even more difficult to watch if he wasn’t. It was as frustrating a 90 minutes as I’ve ever seen, not helped by the ball spending more time in the air and off the pitch than it did on the floor.

On the bright side, we don’t have to go back there again for a while.

This Stoke game couldn’t have come at a better time for the ex-MK man either. Without wanting to resort to humping it long up top, letting Holt and Wilba put their weight about competing with Stoke’s aerial presence could create a final 20 minutes primed for Jacko to bring his pace on and run at pounded defenders. It’s as good a chance as any to give him a proper run, and in turn it might be a nudge in the right direction to Morison.

Wilbraham is well on his way to cult hero status despite Leicester away being his only goal for us. His cameos continue to impress while Morison appears to be going the other way, and few would begrudge him a goal.

Johnson may well play a big part too, his physicality could be invaluable. Probably best to sit him next to Fox so he has an outlet that isn’t requiring his accuracy to be tested, mind. That would mean there’s no place for Patches though, but, horses for courses and all that. After all, if we’re playing two big lads we’re going to need balls being put into the box.

If it was me I’d use Crofts instead of Johnson. They’re slightly different players, yes, but neither shirks a tackle, Crofts has a better engine and breaks play up without thinking every time he glimpses the goal is a good time to shoot. But then again, Howson’s being taken on his first trip with first team. Who’d be Lambert, eh?

Anyway, it’s getting a bit clustered up here in mid-table at the minute, a win would put a bit of breathing space between us and Stoke. It would also drag us within a point of Liverpool providing Arsenal can prove the Tottenham result wasn’t a fluke. If it all pans out right, we had all better get our Spurs shirts out every time the FA Cup comes around, they could be sending us into Europe.

Not that we’re getting carried away or anything…

They’ve been up a few years now, in fact Wolves have been there or thereabouts for much longer. But as I said, they’ve been in around the dogfight all the while without improving their side enough to pull away. Without wanting to be aligned with them Stoke have done, only this season have their safety looked under threat.

The Potters have bought players of Premier League experience and quality. We may not agree with their style but we all know it’s effective. Wolves on the other hand have not. Or at least they haven’t done so consistently enough, Doyle and Fletcher aside.

Getting back to us, you could well argue we’re going about it slightly differently. Lambert has taken it upon himself to nurture players for the club; our future and theirs. They’ve all been investments. Players that other clubs would have picked up later on in their careers once their trade had been honed.

If Lambert decides as we expect and doesn’t go down the route of signing a Stefanovic or Sibierski he’ll need to maintain this impressive hit rate. He hasn’t got one wrong yet, heck he’s even chiseled Wilbraham a little cult-hero niche. So if he and we are to stride away from the trapdoor, we’ll have to continue picking up players with the drive and ability -and ability to fulfill- as consistently as we have.

It’s the difficult second album. But, thankfully Lambert and complacency don’t go. McNally knows that how tough it is going to get after this first year, hence why the plans for the development of the ground are held off for at three years in the top flight.

Safety this year won’t mean we’re out of the woods, but we ain’t half in a good place right now.

Coupled with today’s admission, they’re also sticking by their two *ahem* golden oldies. If they were giving youngsters a good (well, let’s just leave it at a) starting base you could argue their case. Well, if your life depended on it you could. Possibly. At a push.

This is their third season. It’s also Team Lotus-cum-Caterham’s and Virgin Racing-cum-Murussia’s third. Caterham can boast Petrov, the same who finished last season with glimpses of the form he introduced himself with, and Heikki. Williams are no doubt fretting that if Maldonado frequents the wall as regularly as he did last season they’ll be chasing down the soon-to-be departing-Norfolk lot. Fernandes could finish fourth bottom in two seasons in the same year. A handy coup, if so.

Murussia too kept hold of Glock, he will be racing on his tod in between HRT and the rest of the pack until Pic is up to speed. They’ll need to improve their reliability, it’s been an achilles heel that has even provided them with the final two numbers on their cars

HRT on the other hand have two drivers in Karthikeyan and de la Rosa with a combined age of 75. 75. And, Pedro de la Rosa has been handed a two-year contract. At the youthful age of 40. They still don’t have a legal car. If it does pass its next crash test they will have only one official test in Barcelona to get some miles in the car.

But, at least they’ve given themselves some breathing space this time unlike last year, eh?

Leicester used the ball better, we couldn’t string five passes together and everyone appeared to be on their own wavelength. Some could barely be bothered to string together five paces. Morison especially so, he even set the tone early on by firing lazily over the bar when even Barnett would have been annoyed not to at least hit the target.

Could the notable cameo(s) from Wilbraham slip Morison down the pecking order? Unlikely, but if Wilbraham had missed the amount of good chances Morsion has this season we’d never hear the end of it. Wilbraham couldn’t have done any more than he did when he came on. He won nearly every ball with good flick-ons or control, chased defenders down and nearly snatched an equaliser.

This isn’t a knee-jerk overreaction resulting from yesterday. Morison’s first touch is never good, and he’s wasteful both in front of goal and holding the ball up. I never fancy him to slot it home when the ball’s on the floor. In front of goal in the air, yes, he’s a threat. You can make up for your shortcomings by visibly putting in the effort, Jackson and Holt do it but the same could never be said of Morison.

Talking of rubbish first touches, Barnett was equally poor. For me he’s behind Martin as our fifth choice centre-back, and no doubt sixth choice when Bennett properly arrives. Granted, he’s good at getting in the way, but a thinking defender he aint. Maybe we’ve been spoiled by the Zak, Ayala and Ward, but Barnett is truly atrocious with the ball anywhere near his feet. He’s our clumsiest defender too, and we all know we’ve had too many of them the past few years.

But despite all this, we’ll have a changed back four and we’re going to get something against Manyoo.

As pointed out over on Holtamania, a Swansea win puts them above us in the league. And that’s annoying. Mainly, because we will then – however temporarily- lose the ability to counter the sickly love-in for Swansea with a “Yeah but just look at the league table.”

Sure, they play nice football. And sure, their defence is toight like a toiger. But take them out of Wales and they’re a different side. And they seem to forget where the goal is. Arsenal have been chastised for that trait for years, yet Swansea are swooned at for it, which is odd. Especially since that could be their demise, however unlikely that may seem at the minute.

Clean sheets don’t win games. They help, but they can only ensure you don’t lose. Without wanting to state the obvious, goals win games. Even King Kev knows that. Swansea have prettied pundits into a criticism-less trance.

They’re helping me feel even happier about our season though, at the start of this season one of my main aims (aside from the obvious, of course) for Norwich was for Holt to outscore Danny Graham. On track, ish. And maybe even two of our strikers will outscore him.

Yes, yes, I may be a little envious of them. The do play nice football after all. But still. Save a little recognition for us, eh?

For some reason, very few are confident of coming away with too much. Maybe it has something to do with last season, when they didn’t let us play with the ball for any of the 90 minutes.

Me? Well I’d take a point.

Somehow Twitter was awash with bemusement over the Bennett deal. We signed him, Swansea didn’t. We have cover at centre-back and another one on the road back from injury. Loaning him back was a deal-maker. Plus, it keeps him playing a high level of football. The sigh of relief from Elliot Ward was heard across the county.

We shouldn’t forget about Howson either. We’ve added depth to our squad with quality players.

Away from us though, we’re in better shape than those in immediate danger. Wolves brought in Bassong and Bassong alone. Clearly they saw everyone else ignore Spurs’ pleas and replied with a “Go on then, can’t hurt to have him.” Steve Kean’s polishing his “do our best to get out this league” soundbites a bit too early and brought in Bradley Orr. And let Ryan Nelsen go. Ominous for them two.

QPR spent a lot, but still without any semblance of a plan. The seats behind the goals at Loftus Road are going to be taking a pounding, but not as much as their bank balance. Save some money for the F1, eh Tony?

Swansea were unexpectedly quiet, although Graham appears to have noticed where the goal is now. Bolton have put their faith in the talented Ryo Miyaichi but were unceremoniously rejected by Zaha. Just as ominous as Wolves and Blackburn. Wigan held onto Hugo, but will lose him (and Premier League status) for free. Mind= boggled.

So, while there’s no room for complacency, we really have come out of January rather well. The rumours of Rhodes and Snodgrass were wide of the mark, for now at least. Rhodes would have been a curious one anyway since Vaughan is close and all our strikers are in the goals.

We even saw off a cheeky bid from across the border. Although, the bid reeks more of Rangers attempting to show their fans they are active in improving their squad now they have the money from Jelavic. Token gesture.

Our midfield appears to have most corners covered now, we have the bruiser, the maestro, the snapping runner and the string-puller. And one, soon to be two, young’uns out learning their trade. But of course if Howson’s now ex, much rumoured team-mate was interested I’m sure we could make room for him.

This blog was started with the main aim of sarcastically rambling about the goings-on at Carra but it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to fulfill that. Especially when we’re signing excellent young players to add to our good young squad. We’ll plough on nevertheless.

Presumably the only player who won’t be thrilled with the signing of Howson is the unrecognisable Andrew Crofts. He’s found himself on the periphery, enough time to grow some hair no less. An all-action midfielder coming through the doors is only going to knock him down a notch again.

Johnson appears to be Lambert’s go to guy, despite Crofts and Fox seeming to be a better fit. Fox and Howson sounds even better, mind. Johnson battling and presence seemingly makes up for his deficiencies elsewhere. And no doubt one of hits will go in sooner or later. The law of averages rule this universe, you know.

Talking of players being due one, Coventry away seems a long time ago now. There’s a bouncing ball with Fox’s name on it, surely. Then again, that’s exactly what Howson’s here for.

Unfortunately this will fall on many-a deaf ear. Come window-closing time people will be in bits bemoaning the lack of activity. I, and I hope many others would agree, would rather we did just as Lambert is planning. More specifically, not straining the wage budget with players that are no better than what we already have.

Granted, injuries will occur, players will lose form and more options may be handy. But, say we don’t eat a dodgy Spag Bol and lose half the squad. Say the rotation that’s keeping everyone on their toes continues to work but we’ve signed a Djemba-Djemba type player or two. Unnecessary wages spent.

As Sir Paul rightfully acknowledged, it’s only two weeks in. Things may change both here and elsewhere and we may be forced to bring in a body rather than a player. Or a player fitting Lambert’s mould may become available. There’s no telling which might or might not happen.

I’d rather we did January with this rational, reasoned approach instead of throwing darts at the list on *time for usual QPR transfer policy dig* Big Tony‘s wall. Their scatter-gun approach could see them end up with players of different systems, shoehorned into one universal makeshift system.

But at least their January will be exciting, eh? I’d much rather have January with Lambert.