Rio All At Sea-o

Well,
Rio Ferdinand is the England Captain for tonight's game against France. Taking time out from his busy schedule of helping United win the league and organising Rap Idol, he will lead England out for a 1-0 loss tonight.
Old Rio wouldn't be many people's choice for captain (as discussed recently here) but Capello has little option here. Gerrard is lacking as captain (witness last Sunday's mess at OT) and people have argued that it takes his focus away.
John Terry, as well as being odious and hardly someone you'd like to lead your country has been in poor form (esp. vs Spurs) and has an annoying habit of haranguing referees. Rooney is too young, volatile and foul-mouthed. Of the other guaranteed starters, no one would make a case for Ashley or Joe Cole and in the rest of the positions there is too much uncertainty as to who will play constantly. Gareth Barry may be a good choice but is he a long term starter?
Hargreaves too would seem to be good, but he is not playing for United and his injury problems will probably ensure he won't be starting enough games for England. No one knows who will be playing at RB, RM, GK or up front with Rooney, and none of the candidates offer a compelling case, so Capello is stuck with Rio or Stevie G. God help him.

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You may have noticed some video advertising on the blog recently, we hope you don't mind too much and we promise to invest any earnings on a new microphone for the podcast. They are generally targeted at people in the UK, so no need (apart from curiosity...) to click them if you live outside that area.
We will have a new promotion at the end of the week for Irish readers/listeners, we'll keep you posted on that. Anything we've earned from advertising has gone on costs associated with the website and podcast, so thanks for your continued support.

This advertising is a direct result of being shortlisted at the Irish Blog Awards 2008 Best Sports and Recreation Blog

Mark

ODF 07 Feb Podcast Online

Hi All,
our latest podcast is online now.

We discuss:

• Results & Fixtures - Premier League and Internationals
• Pub Talk - the offbeat news of the week in a handy 12 minutes
• Featured Section - the Legend of Franco Baresi
• Comments from the blog

Download it or subscribe to the RSS feed

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We've been nominated for 'Best Football Podcast' at Soccerlens (yes, we were surprised too). If you like what we're doing and want to help us get some publicity, please visit the following link to vote.

http://soccerlens.com/the-best-football-podcast-soccerlens-2007-awards/5630/

Cheers,
Mark & JJ

Email: comments@okeydokefootball.com
Website: http://www.okeydokefootball.com

Podcast - ODF 30 May 07

Hi Folks,
Mark here.

This week's podcast is online & we start with Pub Talk and move swiftly onto the inaugural Okey Doke awards, which we hope you enjoy. Thanks very much for all your suggestions, it was a tight finish in some cases, but we think we've captured the spirit of the awards. Please leave your comments below.
The show is almost an hour this week as we had so much stuff to get through and if you occasionally hear me 'eh' it is either because a) JJ is fiddling with the computer trying to delete files, thus distracting me or b) because we started drinking heavily during the long show.

Download the file here by right click (http://libsyn.com/media/okeydokefootball/odf30May07.mp3)
or subscribe to the RSS feed here (http://feeds.feedburner.com/OkeyDokeFootball)
Via iTunes, click this http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcastid=204027315

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United have this morning signalled their intent for next season with the capture of Anderson and Nani as the replacements for Scholes and Giggs. It is a considerable coup, considering half the clubs in Europe were creaming their pants at the thought of these guys, and has Queiroz all over it. There are rumours that he is also responsible for Evra and Vidic, so although he has been seen as a bad influence on Fergie, maybe this is why he is there. At least it is something to justify his salary.
So immediately the pressure is on United's rivals to match them, it will surely make for a frantic summer of dealing, Chelsea are sure to strengthen their already strong team and Liverpool need to invest wisely. Arsenal have claimed they won't spend much but surely they need to be careful of Spurs and Everton creeping up on them?

Talk to ya later,
Mark
http://www.okeydokefootball.com/