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

Gunnar be gone soon

On Saturday in the Premier League, we may find out just how desperate Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is to keep his job at Manchester United, who continue to sway and spin as everyone fights over who gets to be cox. What exactly is the plural of 'cox', anyway? Whatever it is, you can be sure Solskjaer was muttering it in Turkey on Wednesday as 'his side', whatever that means, did their very best to get another manager sacked. Cohesion has not been a strong suit at Old Trafford, not since Sir Alex left, but you watch 'em when the end is near. It's actually quite impressive.

Perhaps Solskjaer will cling to the trouser leg of somebody important, but don't rule out something more sinister should the opportunity arise. Apparently, from Saturday the new rule (Rule 88c: Trump Card) is you can count only the goals scored by your side, and therein lies hope for the visitors on their trip to Everton. Then again, they will have to score to make that a possibility, and as soon as the United players find out, they'll find a way not to.

Waiting in the wings/lurking in the shadows is Mauricio Pochettino, who is managing to maintain his reputation for being really nice despite arriving on the Monday Night Football set with one thing in mind. He really ought to have brought a scythe and a few board games so he could press on up the motorway to Manchester and be done with it. Instead we have this unsavoury situation: Solskjaer knows he's going, his players know he's going, the board know he has to go, and Poch (short for Pochettino) has to work out whether you can still do property viewings in Manchester now the rules have changed. Perhaps he's already bought the house next door to Ole.

Then again, perhaps all this is premature; perhaps those who 'run the club' (again, not sure that does justice to their abject failure to actually run the club) have looked at the fixtures, determined that United might manage some good results over the coming weeks, and will instead force their current manager to suffer the ignominy of the sack after a home defeat to either Manchester City, or else Leeds, just before actual Christmas. It would be far better for everyone if they did the necessary thing now.

Defeat to Everton would probably end all speculation and the home side look good value as marginal outsiders. There's a line of thinking which says their brilliant start to the season doesn't represent what they are because they've now suffered back-to-back defeats on the road. It seems flimsy. Everton have scored 18 goals in five games at Goodison Park and can be excused a couple of disappointing results. Surely, they will go for the jugular and likely enough they'll succeed in finding it. Helped, perhaps, by the return of James Rodriguez, and by those shameless schemers on the other side.

Elsewhere in football matches, Manchester City host Liverpool in a real test of which of their respective weaknesses is easiest to mask. Both won last weekend, both did so in fairly unconvincing fashion, yet both are sufficiently far ahead of the opposition to do this for a sustained period. Still I maintain that one or both will flap about and allow us all to retain interest in a genuine title race, which is perhaps why this clash of the title-uns doesn't feel quite so important, so potentially decisive, as last year.

We've got Mark O'Haire previewing that game, and Tom Carnduff with his usual take on Saturday's action. TC has been in sparkling form this week, bagging the place money with an outrageous 66/1 first goalscorer among several outright winners. He's also coped very, very well with Leeds' defeat to Leicester on Monday. Probably what spurred him on.

Football on Sporting Life

• Tom Carnduff's Saturday Premier League tips
• Mark O'Haire on Manchester City v Liverpool
• Super Sunday tips: Joe Townsend & Michael Beardmore
• More football previews and betting tips

Friday

• Brighton v Burnley - 1730, Sky Sports Box Office
• Southampton v Newcastle - 2000, Sky Sports

Saturday

• Everton v Man Utd - 1230, BT Sport
• Crystal Palace v Leeds - 1500, BT Sport Box Office
• Chelsea v Sheff Utd - 1730, Sky Sports
• West Ham v Fulham - 2000, BT Sport Box Office

Sunday

• West Brom v Spurs - 1200, Sky Sports Box Office
• Leicester v Wolves - 1400, Sky Sports
• Man City v Liverpool - 1630, Sky Sports
• Arsenal v Aston Villa - 1915, Sky Sports Box Office

Something going on in the USA

I must be careful here but it was interesting to read that legendary ('Hall of Famer', I suppose they insist on us calling him) trainer Bob Baffert has vowed to do everything in his power to prevent more of his horses returning positive tests for banned substances as we enter a fascinating Breeders' Cup weekend.

My first reaction was, well, I can think of one thing you can do which will definitely ensure the horses don't fail tests, but I'm sure it's more complicated than that. So let's keep it sporty and hope that Baffert's team can all go to post, return, pass all their tests and collect their rosettes. They include the bottom three on the racecard for the Breeders' Cup Classic, a trio who could yet make up the top three of the market. Baffert won the race in 2014, 2015 and 2016, and is the most successful trainer in its history.

European interest is widespread — Richard Mann tells me the raiding party is strong — and wouldn't it be something if Dermot Weld landed the Turf with Tarnawa? Our columnist Fran Berry will be roaring that one home while Oisin Murphy will do the steering aboard Kameko, who looks the one to beat in the Mile. Watch out too for the entire county of Yorkshire, although after the Olympics nonsense of 2012 I do worry a little what might happen to her ego if the likes of John Quinn and Nigel Tinkler and Kevin Ryan return having done a job on the Americans.

Whatever does unfold over the two nights of action, it should offer a necessary break from CNN and when it's all over, you'll probably still be able to hop channels and see them counting votes in Nevada. Richard and Matt Brocklebank will be providing rolling reports and reaction both on Friday and Saturday.

Present and correct

It’s a great time of year for National Hunt racing. Part of that is the inherent excitement of the beginning of a new season — and, clearly the season begins now, not in May or whenever it actually begins — but it might also have to do with Cheltenham being sufficiently far away so as to not yet cast a shadow over every single thing.

Then again, it does tend to find ways to loom such as phrases like 'it’s his Gold Cup', which we’ll hear before and perhaps even after Present Man runs in the Badges Ales at Wincanton. Winner of this in both 2017 and 2018, each time under Bryony Frost, he's back for a fifth try in a race trainer Paul Nicholls has dominated, winning it five times in the last 10 years and 10 times dating back to his first, in 1999.

To land his own hat-trick and cement his place as Frost's second-favourite horse ahead of Milansbar, Present Man will have to defy a higher mark than he has in the past. And so the likely outcome, or at least likelier, is that Danny Whizzbang shows the benefit of wind surgery, perhaps even that My Way finally justifies the reputation he brought with him from France.

Earlier on the card, our columnist Daryl Jacob will ride Sceau Royal in the Elite Hurdle. A 163-rated chaser, he won the Welsh Champion Hurdle last time to confirm his adaptability and is undeniably well-in at the weights here. Not that such problems are always insurmountable and, again, Nicholls has a strong hand courtesy of the highly-touted Solo, and the reliable Diego Du Charmil.

One way or another, Nicholls has managed to maintain business-as-usual, adding Tuesday's Haldon Gold Cup to the Cheltenham handicap won by Frodon, and is probably set for another big day at his local track.

Stand by too for a quality card at Navan on Sunday, which features the Troytown Chase, the return of Ryanair third A Plus Tard, and what looks like being a highly competitive renewal of the Lismullen Hurdle. It will be a busy weekend on these pages and I recommend keeping tabs on a lively tips centre for Breeders' Cup, Wincanton, Ireland, and the best of the rest.

Racing on Sporting Life

• Full Breeders' Cup tipping and preview package
• Saturday Value Bet preview
• Best bets each day from our racing team
• All this weekend's racing previews and tips

Friday

• Keeneland - 19.30-2215, Sky Sports Racing

Saturday

• Wincanton - 12.40-1605, Racing TV
• Doncaster - 11.50-1545, Sky Sports Racing
• Aintree - 12.25-15.50, Racing TV
• Kelso - 12.00-15.57, Racing TV
• Naas - 12.15-16.10, Racing TV
• Chelmsford - 16.30-20.30, Racing TV
• Keeneland - 17.02-22.18, Sky Sports Racing

Sunday

• Sandown - 12.40-16.00, Racing TV
• Stratford - 12.50-16.10, Racing TV
• Ffos Las - 12.50-16.10, Sky Sports Racing
• Navan - 12.00-15.50, Racing TV

Exploring yourself... and Austria

There are certain sporting events which are far less globalist ventures than their titles would have you believe, and while the World Cup of Darts is a less egregious example than baseball and its World Series, they're not fooling anyone by hosting it in Germany or, as is the case this year, neighbouring Austria. The basic rule is, if you're not the Netherlands and you're not England, don't bother showing up.

Unless that is you're Scotland, but their chances of a successful title defence have been hit by news that it's very much the B team. When I was seven, and could run, I was one of the better players for Quorn Juniors yet, one summer, we turned up at a six-a-side tournament and I found myself on the B team. Later, I realised our manager was playing mind games with those rascals from Kirby Muxloe and Braunstone, who were led to believe they were up against our reserves only to be absolutely battered (two for me but it's a team game). It proved a great tactic from Ian Whateverhisnamewas. Trouble is, even I know that John Henderson and Robert Thornton aren't as good as Gary Anderson and Peter Wright, so it isn't going to work here.

Instead, the spanner in the works this time comes courtesy of Wales, with Gerwyn Price and Jonny Clayton a doubtless formidable duo. They're second favourites to the Netherlands, with England third in the market, and you'd think one of this trio wins. You'd think. Chris Hammer has other ideas which you can digest here.

More from Sporting Life

• Chris Hammer on the World Cup of Darts
• Selections for the weekend's greyhounds action
• Previews and tips for key UFC Vegas 13 fights

To come this weekend

• Reports throughout snooker's Champion of Champions
• Live Breeders' Cup coverage plus more from the UK action
• Sunday morning: PGA Tour golf betting preview
• Sunday evening: Andy Schooler's latest tennis tips