“It changes all the time,” explained Grant Holt, the prolific striker who has now scored goals in every division from the Conference North to the Premier League. “I think the most formations we played in one game was against Chelsea at their place. We started with a 5-3-2, went to 4-4-2, then went to a diamond. We ended up with a 4-5-0 after the sending off.”
Lambert himself admitted that flexibility was at the core of his football philosophy, one schooled in Germany, where, as a player, he won the Champions League with Borussia Dortmund, then later studied for his coaching qualifications.
“I’ve changed the system all season,” he said. “You couldn’t set out against the top teams as you did against those in the lower leagues because you’d get eaten alive. You have to plan. You’ve got to respect who you’re playing against. You’ve got to use your brain. The great thing about here is that whatever system we pick the lads adapt to it.”
Indeed, it was Lambert’s quick-witted ability to set up his team for each circumstance that first alerted Norwich to his talents. He was manager of Colchester when they inflicted a 7-1 defeat on Norwich but two seasons ago, a setback so traumatic it provoked irate fans to toss their season tickets in disgust at the home dugout.
The Norwich chief executive, David McNally, was so impressed with the manner in which Lambert had approached that game tactically, he hired him almost on the spot and charged him to rescue the club. Two consecutive promotions later, Norwich are ninth in the top flight. And that ascent has been achieved with boiled egg, rather than caviar, money.
Spurning conventional assumption that Premier League experience is essential to survive in the Premier League, Lambert has filled his side with ambitious youngsters from the lower divisions. He tends to buy in those who have done well in matches against him. The latest evidence of his ability to find value downstairs is the recruitment of the Leeds captain Jonny Howson, who was at Carrow Road on Friday for a medical.
“I think he’ll add goals from midfield, which we need,” said Lambert of his signing. “He can get round the pitch, he’ll get better as a player, the higher he goes. If everything goes well he’ll do great for us.”
Previously unconsidered English talent blossoming in the Premier League: that is precisely what has made Swansea City this month’s flavour. You wonder if Lambert must feel a little aggrieved that his equally adept regime in East Anglia has not received quite the eulogies flourished at Brendan Rodgers’s outfit.
“Hey, I’ve nothing against Swansea, they were great against Arsenal, deserved all that,” he said. “But I never bother what people think. I know what the team have done. That’s my main focus. If you start to believe your own credit that’s a bad place to go.
"People can get caught up in their own form, how well they’re doing. You get players who get given an eight in the paper and they see that and think they’ve arrived, when in my opinion they were hopeless. The lads have done brilliantly for me. I know that. Really I don’t need others going on about it to appreciate it.”
Besides, Lambert prefers not to be noticed. He certainly does nothing to court attention. His press conferences tend to be bland, his statements after games are never inflammatory, he is hesitant to single out individual players for praise or scorn. And while his own ferocious, sometimes privately explosive, competitiveness might present a very different edge to the club’s traditionally gently tweedy image, he sees merit in remaining under the radar.
“It’s a good thing in a way,” he admitted. “The lads don’t need any more pressure. They get enough from 27,000 supporters. You want them to enjoy their football. If they do that, good things will follow.”
In Lambert’s 2½ years in charge at Carrow Road, no club has done the double over his team. If he can prevent Chelsea (who won 3-1 back in August) breaking that record on Saturday, his chances of quietly getting on with his job unhindered by attention will be greatly reduced. And were he to engineer victory, the first in the league by his club over a top four team since 1993, it won’t be the B-word that will be consuming all thoughts in Norfolk. It will be one beginning with S: safety.