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Feyenoord's measures to control their fans failed to work in Nancy. Ernst Bouwes reports

What cruel irony. In 1974, fans of Tottenham Hotspur introduced major football violence to Holland during the second leg of the UEFA Cup final against Feyenoord. Thirty-three years later, Feyenoord find themselves banned for the rest of the European season for hooliganism at a UEFA Cup tie at Nancy while their scheduled opponents, Spurs, may receive a bye into the next round (Feyenoord still have a chance that the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne will overturn the verdict).

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Monday 1 Manchester United miss a chance to go nine points clear, drawing 2‑2 at injury-hit Newcastle. Liverpool’s 3‑0 win over Bolton takes them third. “They’ve shown me in the last couple of weeks why they are down there,” says Alan Curbishley as West Ham crash 6‑0 at Reading, their third successive defeat. Wigan drop to 17th after a fifth straight loss, 3‑0 at home to Blackburn. Antti Niemi is hospitalised with a serious neck injury in Fulham’s 0‑0 draw with Watford. Derby’s 2‑1 win at Preston takes them to within three points of Championship leaders Birmingham, beaten by a 90th‑minute goal at Ipswich. Torquay are six points adrift in League Two after losing 1‑0 at Bristol Rovers.

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With the autumn crisis all but forgotten, Glenn Roeder’s side face up to one of his former clubs against a backdrop of takeover rumours that could make one man, somewhat undeservedly, even richer. Harry Pearson looks on

The experienced approach Newcastle on the penultimate Saturday before Christmas with caution. The city is the scene of such frenzied shopping that the unwary football fan can easily find himself swept away by a tidal wave of present-hunters outside Central Station and deposited without warning in Fenwick’s ladies’ gloves department.

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More and more fans are having to deal with club owners with odd accents. David Spark examines what attracts overseas billionaires and what the deals mean for supporters

The theme of the season in the Premiership is the gold rush towards foreign ownership of clubs. Unlike the scramble towards stock-market flotation a decade ago, this gold rush is strictly limited. Only serious global ­capitalists need apply.

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Tom Davies rounds up the news on clubs in crisis

Rancour is in the air at Swindon Town, where supporters are rallying around a “fans consortium” seeking to wrest control of their club, which is around £3 million in debt and perilously in arrears on Company Voluntary Arrangement payments. Fans have been staging “orange protests” – turning up in orange garb, in part because it’s manager Paul Sturrock’s favourite colour and was the symbol of Ukraine’s revolution – at games. But the old guard are proving tough to shift.

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