Paul Lambert has been busy on the phone this week as work begins on the new season – before the old one has even come to an end.

'I've spoken to a lot of Premiership managers since we've done it who have been absolutely brilliant with me and told me a bit about it and what it's like,' said Lambert yesterday on the eve of the season's final game.

'They are probably telling me things I know and things I don't obviously know, which I keep to myself, but they have been very, very helpful every one of them, very good.'

There was a also congratulatory message from Ottmar Hitzfeld, who was his manager at Borussia Dortmund, while Lambert has also spoken to Martin O'Neill – two men who have a huge influence on his career.

'The biggest compliment is that him and Mr Hitzfeld are the best I ever worked under,' he said.

'I got a nice text from Mr Hitzfeld the other night, which was really brilliant for somebody of that stature and the gaffer, I spoke to him since it happened. There is no two ways about it he is an absolutely unbelievable manager.'

Their experience and advice will be essential as Lambert steps up from the Championship to the Premier League.

There are clearly staffing issues that need to be addressed, with Lambert expected to speak to all his players individually about next season – once today's Carrow Road party is over.

Targets will change given the different circumstances, but the essentials of a Lambert transfer target are likely to remain.

'You try and get people who are going to be good players, but also good characters.' he said. '

'If you look when a League One team plays a Championship team in a one-off game everybody seems to raise their game. It is the same with a Championship team playing against a Premiership team in the FA Cup for instance.

'That's why you get cup shocks, because people can raise their game for one game.

'It is over the course of the whole thing that they find it hard to sustain and my job will be to find people with a mindset who I think can do it through a whole season, not just half a season. That is the difficulty.'

Some of the current crop will go while others who helped City to promotion will get a crack at the top flight.

'Those lads have been brilliant – you don't know somebody is good enough until you give them a shot. But for what they have done for me and the way I feel about them, you won't know, you have got to give somebody a chance.

'I was a player myself not long ago and you just need somebody to believe in you that you can do it and it is up to you once you are on that field of play to do it.'

The financial issue clearly comes into play, but Lambert made one point very clear.

'I think that's another thing people should get out of their brain – that we've going to go and get people on �50,000 a week and �60,000 a week,' he said.

'That'll never happen. Never.'