I think it could be a blessing in disguise that City won against QPR in the league and lost to Leyton Orient in the FA Cup because just like last season we can now concentrate on the league and while all around us are in the FA Cup fourth round we are playing Crystal Palace.

If we were to win this game while the other teams were continuing to do well in the cup. It can only be a good thing for City.

It was a relief that all the rumours about Lambert leaving were done before the FA Cup match against Leyton Orient and not before the QPR game because those three points could be far more important at the end of the season.

It could have been a Martin O’Neill moment happening all over again because all those years ago I can remember we were going to play Leicester in the league when O’Neill decided to resign. It was all because the board at the time didn’t sanction the move to sign that man Windass who has probably been spoken about more than many past City players even though he never put on a shirt for the Canaries.

It took City nearly ten years to recover from this mistake from Mr Chase and I’m so pleased to see this board with the strong leadership qualities of McNally and Lambert in charge are hopefully leading us onwards and upwards.

It could have seen us missing out on our transfer targets because we’ve got the best scouting network we’ve had in a long time headed by Ewan Chester and Lambert could have decided to take those targets to Burnley instead, with Holt and Hoolahan joining him there.

Now Lambert has said he’s staying. We then heard Hoolahan has signed a new contract with us and it looks all very promising for the future.

I would also like to congratulate Craig Fleming on gaining promotion with Lowestoft Town last season and now leading them into the play-off position this season.

This could be a double celebration because Gary Holt, who was playing for Lowestoft Town last season, is now back here working as a coach. We only hope he can help Lambert continue with the midas touch he seems to have.

The omens are also looking good because when Darel Russell left Stoke for Norwich City, Stoke got promoted to the Premier League and Norwich City were relegated. Now Russell has left Norwich City for Preston it looks like Preston could be relegated and hopefully City will be promoted to the Premier League!

It’s also ironic that our Academy seems to be going from strength to strength at the time we have Lansbury on loan because he was in the Academy system at NCFC back in 1997 when he was only nine. At the time Roy Massey was the Academy director at NCFC, but he was offered the job at Arsenal and our Academy collapsed and all the players moved on.

The two players of note who Roy Massey developed at Arsenal were Lansbury and Jay Simpson. It would be interesting to know if anyone else knows who the other young players were to leave City at the time because Lansbury has stated he use to be best mates at school with Korey Smith at that time.

We had another promising young striker last year who was offered a scholarship to join City but he turned it down to join Arsenal. I hope we haven’t missed out on another gem like they did with Dion Dublin because they didn’t think he would make the grade when he was on trial with City as a youngster.

Thankfully, as you can see from Korey’s performances since he was voted Academy Player of the Year a few years ago, he has progressed superbly and long may that continue.

Finally I would like to say how very impressed I have been with the Academy team this year especially due to the injury problems they have had to contend with. Due to this they have played a few of the under 16 players who haven’t let the team down.

It bodes well for the future because in pre-season the Under 15 Academy team won their tournament in Belgium.