In recent years, Martin Johnson has spent the holiday period with his wife’s family in New Zealand. This Christmas, however, the England team manager has stayed at home and his thoughts will have turned to the make-up of the elite player squad that will do duty in the 2009 RBS Six Nations Championship.

He will meet his coaching staff a week today to finalise the squad to be named on January 14, knowing that — under the terms of the agreement between the RFU and Premier Rugby Ltd — he can make five changes to the 32 players named in July in his first squad, of whom at least two have been ruled out.

Josh Lewsey, the London Wasps utility back, has retired from the international game and Tom Varndell, the Leicester wing, was withdrawn from the squad in October on grounds of form. Decisions have to be made regarding Jonny Wilkinson and James Simpson-Daniel, with the former unlikely to be fit in time for the Six Nations and the latter on the verge of returning for Gloucester after recovering from ruptured ankle ligaments, because it is possible that the squad named this month must cover the summer fixtures with Argentina.

Even so, there should have been a few names in Johnson’s Christmas stocking whose form over the past two months earn them consideration, if not for the elite squad then for the Saxons, who have two matches in February. It is clear, for example, that Delon Armitage will be a new name in the elite squad after his heroics during a mostly disappointing November international series.

He may have come to international rugby via the back door but the London Irish full back pinned his colours to the mast and takes the place of Lewsey; even so, Armitage must be prepared for a challenge from Olly Morgan, of Gloucester, who is playing better than ever.

If Armitage was England’s stand-out back, then Nick Easter, the Harlequins No 8 named only in the Saxons in July, enjoyed similar status in the forwards. But a clutch of players who were not involved in the three defeats by the Sanzar nations and the victory over the Pacific Islanders have put their hand up. Of the old stagers, the strongest cases have been made by Mike Tindall, the Gloucester centre, who won the most recent of his 56 caps against New Zealand in June, and Mark Cueto, whose last appearance was in the World Cup final 15 months ago.

Both have been plagued by injuries over the past 18 months, with Cueto, the Sale Sharks wing, only finding the form that brought him 13 tries in 24 internationals during the past six weeks. England are not short of wings but, as in most areas of the team, very few of them have nailed down the jersey and Cueto must be worth another look.

He plays, of course, in the same position as Ugo Monye, who came from the Saxons squad in November to make his debut and play all four games. It would be surprising if the Harlequins wing did not secure a place in the senior squad this time but three other players have banged on Johnson’s door in recent weeks, two of them from Monye’s club.

Neither Jordan Turner-Hall nor Chris Robshaw has won a cap but their form for Harlequins suggests that a debut cannot be far away. Of last year’s group of talented England Under-20 players, Turner-Hall has more first-team experience than any and his strength and speed in the centre in the most demanding of fixtures — Stade Français in Europe, Leicester in the Guinness Premiership — demand attention.

Robshaw plays blind-side flanker, where he jostles with James Haskell, Lewis Moody and Tom Croft. But his workrate and pace make him a significant talent, in a different manner to another uncapped back-row contender, Steffon Armitage. The London Irish open-side is a Saxon but seeks to go where his older brother, Delon, has gone. Seasonal headaches for Johnson and Co? You could say.