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Newcastle, managerless and looking for new ownership, travel to a seemingly far happier club, with West Ham fans welcoming Gianfranco Zola. But fresh turmoil is about to emerge: the papers reporting on the game predict the imminent verdict in Sheffield United’s appeal over Carlos Tevez, writes David Stubbs

I caught this fixture in April, on an unseasonably warm day. The Jubilee Line was subject to one of its rare closures and I had to make the trip in a replacement bus, which, like a mobile greenhouse and packed to the rafters, wended its way at gridlocked-traffic’s pace to Canning Town, then past some of east London’s most eye-catching industrial estates before reaching West Ham. Uncannily, though the journey lasted 40 minutes, the Millennium Dome hovered throughout, seemingly never more than 250 yards away; a curse of the white elephant. West Ham, under the lugubrious watch of Alan Curbishley, darted into a 2-0 lead but then, having blown their ­bubbles, conceded two quick goals to a Newcastle team with the air of having accidentally rediscovered their self-esteem under Kevin Keegan.

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Cameron Carter on an attempt to get the UK watching MLS

There used to be a time when a chap’s name in the programme title meant he was central to the project. Ellery Queen, Dempsey & Makepeace, The Sooty Show – they all featured the eponymous protagonists plum in the middle of the fray. Nowadays we live in more complex times, as illustrated by Macca’s Monday Night (Setanta) and David Beckham’s Soccer USA (Five). The former was in fact presented by Angus Scott, with Steve “Macca” McManaman and Tim Sherwood invited along as pundits to mull over the weekend’s games. Now, if my name were Macca and someone told me I was going to be on a programme called Macca’s Monday Night, I’d turn up in my best jacket and trousers expecting to be introducing the thing from the master chair. While it did appear that Scott’s questions were mainly directed to McManaman and then by trickle-down effect on to Tim Sherwood to add a supplementary point, it didn’t seem that Monday Night was owned by Macca as the title suggests. At best you could say he co-owned Monday Night as a sleeping partner.

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It’s 23 years since the “Hadrian’s Wall derby” was played in league or cup, but luckily hostilities can be renewed in a pre-season friendly staged in high summer – at least that’s what the calendar claims. Pete Green writes

It’s the odd-numbered summers that get to you. The close seasons unrelieved by World Cups or European Championships. As much as we feel sick at the corruption of our game; as much as we feel jaded and excluded by the Premier League’s closed shop – and the impenetrable play-within-a-play that is the top four – we still need football like we need air. We believe the game can overcome the choreography of balance sheets, can still depart from the script. This is why we still feel itchy and restless in these alternate summers, when the grandest international tournaments aren’t ­available to tide us through. This is why 12,346 people have left dry and comfortable homes to watch Carlisle and Newcastle play out a tame and inconsequential draw on the wettest and dankest of summer days.

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Tuesday 1 A Russian billionaire, Roman Abramovich, buys a controlling interest in Chelsea and is expected to  settle the club’s oustanding debts, which will cost him around £130m in total.  Ken Bates, who will stay on as chairman,  professes himself delighted with the deal: “The club will benefit from a new owner with deeper pockets to move Chelsea to the next level.” UEFA president Lennart Johansson repeats an earlier warning that England may be expelled from the European championship if fans misbehave at future away matches. Harry Kewell’s agent claims there are still six clubs in the running to sign him, one of whom he can’t name, just to make it all sound more exciting. Craig Bellamy is to face three charges of racially aggravated  harassment following an incident outside a Cardiff nightclub in March.

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It’s taken a while, but African players are finally beginning to thrive in England. Alan Duncan charts the changes in both English and African football that have made this possible

A popular African adage says that “pushing stops at the wall”. For the best part of the last decade, Af­rican players have seen the inexorable push of their compatriots across Europe tending to break down at the formidable wall presented by English football.

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