jayEm

Awful news. I thought Okore would be one of our best players this season. Guess it's up to Vlaar, Clark and Baker now.

Seriously?!

Not sure that's any sort of excuse at all. Probably not, I'm just wildly searching for signs of hope I guess.

Is it worth remembering that this was our first game of the season against an 'average' team? And so the way Lambert set us up yesterday isn't necessarily indicative of how we'll play the rest of the season?

Completely deflated after today, I thought we'd really turned a corner since last season but it seems I was wrong. Top half will be a real achievement. Having said that, I don't think we'll go down. Today was a bad day, but there will be better days to come.

NOOO WEIMANN

Obligatory Delph yellow.

Nice Okore.

I'd forgotten how nervous I get when the Villa are playing....

Sturridge ruled out of Ukraine match with a thigh injury. 'No replacement will be called up.'

I have no idea what's going on.

Have to admit I'm slightly dissapointed we've not signed anyone else so far, having only spent about £10m altogether. I don't think we'll struggle this season, but I'm not sure we'll do quite as well as some hoped.

Hopefully someone will realise how ridiculous it is that the current champions of Europe (effectively) with the best academy in Europe (effectively) aren't playing in this new European youth tournament, but I doubt it.

I don't know how you work that one out! Have gave us a good half season then a decent half season (I only say decent because he had to find a way to score in an Alex Mcleish team) then got injured for the rest of that season, then had his place taken by a younger, BETTER, hungrier player. The fact is he has not given us value for money. He lost his place to a better player and if he couldn't or wouldn't adapt his role to play in a wide position then he can only blame himself. We all saw how frail the team looked with both Bent and Benteke, we simply didn't have the quality in midfield to accommdate that partnership. Lambert made the right call on Bent, FOR FOOTBALLING REASONS, a falling out didn't happen until Bent found himself on the bench and kicked up a stink! Not really sure why you're making such a fuss about my comment. I don't recall saying that Lambert made the wrong call on Bent, I agree with dropping him.

He gave us a good couple of seasons and probably kept us from dropping into the Championship, but he's no longer of any real use to us so £5m from Fulham sounds great. I wish him the best.

I wasn't overly optimistic two weeks ago, but now that Benteke is staying and some of Lambert's new signings are looking good, I'm hopeful of a good season. I think we'll be looking up more than down.

As others have probably already said, the best thing would be for Stan to publicly thank the fans but ask that it stop this season. Otherwise it'll just dwindle on for ages, which no one wants.

What's set off this new talk of Benteke leaving?

Didn't Usain Bolt (and Blake) appear on national television after winning the 4x100m at London 2012, thanking the people of Birmingham for their support when he was based here pre-Olympics?

2-5? Oh dear.

I'd take that. Actually that would be a great start.

Completely ridiculous schedule. It would be silly to say our season starts on September 14th, but it's gonna be an extremely hard opening week. Then we'll spend the next 3 weeks being (unfairly) referred to as relegation favorites because of our poor start. I'm looking forward to this season less and less.

Glad to hear such positivity about him, could really be a star for us in the future.

Just realised what day it is- surely it's very appropriate to post this given the significance of today and the recent good news-

I guess players will be more enticed to come here with Benteke around, big selling point.