This Sporting Weekend: Guide to key weekend sport including TV info and betting tips

You don't need to be world-beating...

Leicester continue their attempt to Do A Leicester when travelling to Leeds - another side attempting to Do A Leicester - on Monday night. The trouble is, so lasting is the aftershock of the Foxes' triumph in 2016 that it is now in fact impossible to Do A Leicester. It took until the days before Christmas for Claudio Ranieri's side to dip below 100/1 when they won the title. Now, just six games into the season, eight sides are shorter than that in the market. Every single team in the division, Fulham included, are shorter than Leicester began that famous season.

Has the horse bolted? Probably. Yet there can be no doubt, if you've been watching Liverpool and Manchester City, that opportunity knocks. Both have what you'd call ideal post-European fixtures on Saturday, to such extent that both winning is less than evens combined. But whether this week or next, their respective problems in defence and attack will surely again be exposed, and if any side can get on a run between now and Christmas, they may well muscle their way in on a title race which had been considered two-horse before the gates opened.

For those with a more immediate focus, it's about 7/4 that Liverpool, City and Chelsea are the winners of Saturday's three Premier League games. Chelsea, who haven't lost away from home so far this season but were 3-0 down at West Brom, host a Burnley side yet to win at Turf Moor. Burnley had better start soon, with trips to Brighton, Man City, Arsenal, Leeds, Aston Villa and Liverpool to come. Manager Sean Dyche currently holds the curious distinction of being prominent in two management markets: next for the chop, and next for England. There's something charmingly Three Lions about that.

Tom Carnduff reckons the odds-on favourites will all win, but his focus is on the sub-markets, which is also true of our take on the 'other' Super Sunday fixtures. Mark O'Haire is in the chair for the main event, Manchester United versus Arsenal, and predicts something close to last weekend's equivalent, when United hosted Chelsea in the drabbest of drab 0-0 draws.

In a Sky Sports promo which promises something altogether more thrilling, Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta says 'we know everything has to be perfect against them'. To paraphrase a famous moment from PMQs earlier this summer: maaaaate, it really doesn't. Competent will suffice.

Football on Sporting Life

• Saturday's Premier League preview
• Sunday's Premier League preview
• Mark O'Haire on Man Utd v Arsenal
• More football tips and betting previews

Friday

• Coventry v Reading - 1945, Sky Sports
• Wolves v Crystal Palace - 2000, BT Sport Box Office

Saturday

• Sheffield Utd v Man City - 1230, BT Sport
• Burnley v Chelsea - 1500, BT Sport Box Office
• Liverpool v West Ham - 1730, Sky Sports

Sunday

• Aston Villa v Southampton - 1200, Sky Sports Box Office
• Newcastle v Everton - 1400, Sky Sports
• Manchester Utd v Arsenal - 1630, Sky Sports
• Tottenham v Brighton - 1915, Sky Sports Box Office

Monday

• Fulham v West Brom - 1730, Sky Sports Box Office
• Leeds v Leicester - 2000, Sky Sports

Yes Cyr, no Cyr, please turn left Cyr

The Charlie Hall Chase is one of those races which marks the changing of the seasons, up there with that one in Ireland, the Badges Ales, the Haldon Gold Cup, and the Grown-Up Soft Drink Chase at Cheltenham. It is also something of a graveyard for favourites and those of a high rating, which is why Cyrname looks vulnerable. Ben Linfoot went into more detail here when weighing Ascot versus Wetherby, and while acknowledging the horse has improved since he last went left-handed, there lies another question he may or may not answer.

Ultimately, since Silviniaco Conti won here as an 11/10 chance in 2012, just one favourite has obliged, and he was also the only favourite to place. Surely there will be a value bet here, and perhaps even a Value Bet. Speaking of Linfoot, he returns to that comfortable and familiar chair with Matt Brocklebank taking a pre-Breeders' breather. Others call it pre-tier 3, but whatever.

Chances are we'll end the day as we started it - no more aware of how good Cyrname is or what he will and won't be able to do next spring. Uncertainty is the name of the game these days and it applies too at Down Royal, where your guess is as good as mine (better, actually) when it comes to Delta Work or Presenting Percy or Chris's Dream or The Storyteller or one of the others in the Grade One Ladbrokes Champion Chase.

Surely then it's the handicaps which provide the greatest appeal for punters, and they don't come much better than the Sodexo Gold Cup Handicap Chase at Ascot. Former Actual Gold Cup second Might Bite runs here off a remarkable rating of 152, Blaklion makes his debut for the Skeltons after a long absence, and there are contenders young and old with none ruled out. My token pick is Valtor, who loves Ascot, goes well fresh, won't mind any more rain and looks fairly treated. Get actual, expert advice via the links below.

Racing on Sporting Life

• Ben Linfoot's Value Bet
• Simon Holt's Saturday selections
• Dave Massey's Punting Pointers
• More betting tips and big-race previews

Saturday

• Wetherby - 12.25-15.55, Racing TV
• Ascot - 12.15-16.17, Sky Sports Racing
• Newmarket - 11.50-15.50, Racing TV
• Ayr - 12.32-16.02, Racing TV
• Down Royal - 12.40-16.10, Racing TV
• Wolverhampton - 16.30-20.30, Sky Sports Racing

Sunday

• Carlisle - 13.05-16.15, Racing TV
• Huntingdon - 12.15-15.58, Racing TV
• Lingfield - 12.55-16.05, Sky Sports Racing
• Cork - 12.40-16.25, Racing TV
• Naas - 12.30-15.40, Racing TV

Box clever

If you really want to be cool and show everyone just how much you love and know about a sport, you have to talk the talk. In cycling, that means saying chapeau and maillot jaune, when well done and yellow jersey would have been absolutely fine. In cricket, you must spell it five-fer and indeed say it five-fer, and in golf, when someone hits a good shot, under absolutely no circumstances should you say 'good shot'. No, no, no. What you're looking for is 'good swing' or, better still, 'swing'. Trust me. Nobody will think you are a pillock.

There is surely no sport which does this dance better than boxing. Here it isn't so much about how you congratulate one of the pugilists for a good bit of hitting - no time for that, with another thudding left on its way. It's about how you rate performance, and there is only one day to do it: scorecards. Not real, in-your-hand scorecards, and not even a boxing scorecards app. No, scorecards of the imaginary kind, which you must keep updated in your head until a fight concludes, and then tweet the outcome.

Along the way, you can dive in with tell-alls like 'I gave that round to Fury' or 'I have Bruno ahead' and very soon, people will know you are a serious boxing fan. Then, come the outcome of the fight, you can lambast the judges for reaching a very different conclusion. A fortnight ago, you were even able to rue the fact that one judge was on his phone during the fight, despite the fact you answered the door to a takeaway driver, ate the pizza, sent a gif on WhatsApp, went to the loo where you sang the national anthem while washing your hands, and were still able to score it 115-113.

I do like boxing, in the same way that I like biscuits. Deep down, I feel like both should be illegal, but for as long as they are not, I will get stuck in. That means I'll be watching Usyk v Chisora and hoping The Cat prowls and leaps and bends and ducks and generally aggravates Chisora, on his way to a unanimous points win - the outcome predicted by Chris Oliver. Get his preview below and make sure you also have a look at our various Usyk-Chisora features, plus an interview with Hannah Rankin ahead of her showdown with Savannah Marshall on the undercard.

Boxing on Sporting Life

• Chris Oliver's big-fight betting preview
• The Big Interview: Usyk's co-promoter
• Just how good is Okelsander Usyk?
• The Big Interview: Hannah Rankin
• 'Silent Assassin' ready to make noise

The ploy of Six

It's been a long wait, but those who followed Tony Calvin's pre-tournament Six Nations advice will discover their fate on Saturday. Already, 'no Grand Slam winner' has copped, but now it's the real quiz: can France pull it off by beating Ireland after England have failed to do what they need to do in Italy? And if not - it's unlikely, after all - can France at least bag the 'without England' money, having been put up at 100/30 to do so?

Whatever happens we should be in for a dramatic Saturday in which the focus ought to be on actual rugby, rather than an absence of rugby brought about by a cluster of Barbarians behaving like bozos and giving lie to the oft-burped theory that rugby players set a good example and football players do not. I'll take Rashford over Robshaw.

Anyway, that focus on the action includes various permutations and, as far as the betting concerns, a cover shot. Read more about it in Tony's preview, which also includes what he calls his most confident bet in the game which otherwise matters little, between Scotland and Wales.

Rugby union on Sporting Life

• Tony Calvin's Six Nations betting preview

What a twit

The latest unsavoury episode on twitter unfolded last week when I congratulated our tennis tipster, Andy Schooler, for a key win for one of his selections who had been a big price outright. Said player had not in fact won, and went on in fact to lose, wasting several opportunities to in fact win.

All's well that ends well and come the end of the week there was a 20/1 winner for our followers and Andy's, so do watch out for his next preview, which again will be published on Sunday. In the meantime there could be another winner or at least place return in Vienna, where we can all pretend something else might happen up until the precise moment that Novak Djokovic inevitably wins. Andrey Rublev is the man to cheer. (Editor’s note: Djokovic lost. Badly. Rublev now favourite.)

The torture of a tennis tournament is familiar to those of us who follow golf and it's true that, like everything, even the Greyhound Derby has been a fairly drawn-out affair in 2020. Come Saturday night, however, there will be just 30 seconds between hope and heartbreak or jubilation for connections and punters. The betting says all six are realistic winners, and we have the thoughts of Jonathan Hobbs, Ian Brindle and Joe Nordoff via the below links.

More from Sporting Life

• Timeform on the Greyhound Derby and more
• Ian Brindle's runner-by-runner guide to the Greyhound Derby
• Jonathan Hobbs' latest greyhounds column

To come this weekend

• Saturday night: European Tour golf betting preview
• Sunday morning: PGA Tour golf betting preview
• Sunday evening: Andy Schooler's latest tennis tips
• Richard Mann on snooker's Champion of Champions