When the 41-year-old Scot took charge of the Canaries they were languishing near the foot of League One, thanks in part to his old club, Colchester, having inflicted a humiliating 7-1 home defeat on them on the opening day of the 2009-10 season. However, nine months later, and Lambert's well-drilled Norwich squad had hunted down Leeds to win the title. Roll the clock forwards to May this year and it was a similar success story for the former Celtic midfielder as he oversaw a second successive promotion campaign, Norwich holding their nerve as the challenge of Cardiff and Swansea faltered. Lambert's achievements saw him collect the League Managers Association award for the second season running, but for the Norwich boss, any accolade is always about a team game. "I never look at myself as being important to the club. The main people are the people who play it and the people who come to watch it," Lambert told Press Association Sport. "What happens to me is irrelevant. I have never been one to worry about myself really - it is about the team, the lads who play." Lambert continued: "The first thing which strikes you when you come here is the fanbase, that definitely gives you the feeling you might be able to turn it around, but you have got to have the players to do it. "You have to come here to see the size of it and the pressure it does generate, because there are so many people who come to watch them play - even when Norwich were in League One, we sold out the stadium, it was the same in the Championship. "Now in the Premier League, it will be again." Lambert, who turns 42 at the start of August, has been busy adding to his squad over the summer, but his half-a-dozen signings have little or no top-flight experience. The pundits may all already have Norwich back in the npower Championship for the 2012-13 season, but Lambert is not concerned, so long as his team play the game, not the occasion. "I don't get embroiled too much in that," said Lambert, who won the Champions League with Borussia Dortmund in 1997. "It is just up to me to get my team focused, not to have any fear in our game, to just go and express ourselves to try to win games. "Yes, you will need big characters to stand up when you are under pressure for long periods of time, but as long as you don't wilt, you are always in the game." Norwich captain Grant Holt is one of those to have led by example in both of the promotion campaigns, plundering 53 goals in 92 games since signing from Shrewsbury in June 2009. It was not so long ago the Carlisle-born centre-forward - who can count the likes of Halifax, Barrow and Sengkang Marine in Singapore among his former clubs - was getting up in the early hours to go to work at a garage as he tried to break into the professional game. The 30-year-old said: "I guess I have done it the hard way. I don't think you ever sit there changing a tyre and think 'I am going to play in the Premier League someday'. "But I have been fortunate to come to a club with a great bunch of lads and had a fantastic manager. "We know it is going to be tough, but we need to learn quickly that we deserve to be there on merit."
