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

Colourful weekend ahead

We all have our favourites, and I had two: emerald green with yellow spots, yellow and emerald green halved sleeves and purple cap; red, with a white sash and a blue cap. One set has been retired, the other lives on. And, thanks to Cheveley Park's expansion from Flat to National Hunt, we get to see them year-round.

Not that Mrs Patricia Thompson, owner of Cheveley Park Stud, is new to jumps racing: her own, very different silks were worn by Carl Llewellyn aboard Party Politics, who won the Grand National in 1992 having been bought to do it. But it's those regal colours which represent the stud Mrs Thompson and her husband bought, rescued and revitalised almost half a century ago, and it's been a strange pleasure to see them over jumps, particularly for those of us who miss the colours of Clive Smith and Kauto Star.

Perhaps there's some irony in the fact that Cheveley Park have so far dominated one race above all others: the Champion Bumper, the only race run at the Cheltenham Festival without any kind of obstacle. Still, their reach is stretching and, in Envoi Allen, they have arguably the most exciting jumper in training, one who puts his unbeaten record on the line on this heavyweight weekend.

That represents another change for Gordon Elliott, so used to having his success powered by the supply lines of Gigginstown. In terms of quantity, that remains true, but in Ballyadam, Quilixios and Envoi Allen, it's Cheveley Park who provide the star quality at Fairyhouse on Sunday. All three are favourites or as good as for their respective Cheltenham Festival targets, and victory for each would combine to shift the tectonic plates of Irish jumps racing once more.

If last weekend was one of nostalgia, this one promises to be all about the future - and that's true of Saturday at Newbury and Newcastle just as it is Fairyhouse. Epatante runs in the Fighting Fifth and will carry another set of famous silks, hoping to avoid the fate of stablemate Buveur D'Air in last year's strange edition. Surely, she will do so.

At Newbury, away from the Ladbrokes Gold Cup watch out for Next Destination (black and white check, yellow sleeves, black and white quartered cap), quickly switched to fences having powered through his long-awaited hurdles return and first start for Paul Nicholls last time out.

For all the moaning about handicap marks, threatening to withdraw key horses and dropping you off a long way from the city you're going to, the O'Leary brothers have brought so much to National Hunt racing over the last decade. But as they slowly retreat from the sport, suddenly there is a little more colour, and a new, primary force from Newmarket, racing's most dominant town.

Racing on Sporting Life

• All this weekend's previews and tips
• Ben Linfoot's Saturday talking points
• Timeform on the Ladbrokes Trophy

Racing on TV

Saturday

• Newbury - 1210-1535, Racing TV
• Newcastle - 1145-1515, Sky Sports Racing
• Doncaster - 1205-1528, Sky Sports Racing
• Bangor - 1215-1542, Racing TV
• Fairyhouse - 1130-1521, Racing TV
• Wolverhampton - 1600-1930, Sky Sports Racing

Sunday

• Carlisle - 1210-1532, Racing TV
• Leicester - 1220-1531, Racing TV
• Fairyhouse - 1200-1540, Racing TV
• Ffos Las - 1238-1550, Sky Sports Racing

Tottenham becoming contenders

Let's cut to the chase here: Tottenham are overpriced again this weekend. Top of the table after nine games, they've scored five at Southampton and six at Manchester United. This Sunday, eight days after their defeat of Manchester City at home, they travel to Chelsea. There's no reason they can't claim another scalp and underline their title credentials while undermining those of their hosts.

It's true that Chelsea are third having found their stride following a stuttering start, their blockbuster attacking talents all bedding in nicely despite Kai Havertz and his positive coronavirus test. Timo Werner is a delight and Hakim Ziyech, as argued by Paul MacDonald, might be their most important player. Goalkeeper Edouard Mendy might also lay claim to that moniker and Thiago Silva is Thiago Silva. Suddenly, they appear to have few weaknesses and some very significant strengths.

Still, a look at their results soon reveals that their form isn't as strong as Tottenham's. Chelsea have beaten Burnley, Sheffield United and Newcastle since they drew 0-0 with United, three sides who are in the bottom six and unlikely to move far from it. This is the biggest test Frank Lampard's side have faced since failing to pass a couple at the beginning of the campaign. And while Jose Mourinho rested his key players at home on Thursday night, Ziyech, Havertz, Silva, Werner and most of the regulars were in France as Chelsea beat Rennes.

And then there are the managers. Lampard benefitted from the Premier League equivalent of the Government's PPE procurement scheme, i.e. there was no real evidence he had a clue what he was doing but he used to play for Chelsea and once did karaoke with Matt Hancock, so the job was his. Though doubtless learning quickly on the job, has at times appeared outmanoeuvred by the man in the neighbouring dugout, and Mourinho - who drew great pleasure from Spurs' League Cup victory over Chelsea - will relish the opportunity to get under his skin once more.

At times it isn't especially becoming, and Mourinho is without doubt one of the sport's worst losers. Right now, though, he is winning. And on what's a fabulous Super Sunday, it would be no surprise were the newly unshackled Portuguese to control both his side of the board and Lampard's, and exit this weekend as the manager of the side most capable of throwing a spanner in the works of Liverpool's title defence.

Football on Sporting Life

• Saturday's Premier League tips
• Mark O'Haire on Chelsea v Spurs
• More Sunday Premier League tips
• Tactics Talk: Everton v Leeds

Football on TV

Saturday

• Brighton v Liverpool - 1230, BT Sport
• Reading v Bristol City - 1230, Sky Sports
• Manchester City v Burnley - 1500, BT Sport
• Everton v Leeds - 1730, Sky Sports
• West Brom v Sheffield United - 2000, Sky Sports

Sunday

• Nottingham Forest v Swansea - 1200, Sky Sports
• Southampton v Manchester United - 1400, Sky Sports
• Chelsea v Tottenham - 1630, Sky Sports
• Arsenal v Wolves - 1915, Sky Sports

After the lord mayor's maximum

Someone crueller than me might suggest that it's oh-so-very BBC to be entering the UK Championship, as they traditionally do, at the halfway stage - after two 147 breaks in the week. Only one of them was broadcast live on Eurosport, of course, but still. "You know everyone is watching these events in particular," said Kyren Wilson after making his. I don't think he was trolling the Beeb. Bravo if so.

Anyway, you'd be absolutely mad to abandon Eurosport at this stage. Their championing of the great sport deserves our loyalty, and so too does their team, the pick of which is Dave Hendon and Neal Foulds in tandem. Foulds (full disclosure: he is a Sporting Life columnist) further enhanced his reputation as an icon of punditry when revealing himself to be a Sufjan Stevens fan the other day and it got me thinking: given how cold it can be during winter, why hasn't snooker cracked Michigan in the way Michigan's finest has clearly cracked snooker?

Some questions just can't be answered but Sufjan, if you're reading, do you want to be on the next Sporting Life snooker podcast with me, Neal and Rich Mann, who claims to have once owned one of your records, yes or no? All we need now is for Graeme Dott to quote Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti and Thepchaiya Un-Nooh to wear an 'I only listen to the Mountain Goats' t-shirt and I will truly tell golf and its various awful people that it's over.

And it nearly is, with two weeks of the year to complete. Snooker on the other hand will not yield, not now, and there are matches every single day from now until December 20. I am going to make it through this year if it kills me.

Snooker on TV

Saturday

• UK Championship - 1315-1630 & 1900-2230, Eurosport and BBC

Sunday

• UK Championship - 1300-1630 & 1900-2230, Eurosport and BBC

This Sporting... Week

Speaking of golf and awfulness, it was revealed this week that several Ryder Cup stars are set to play in February's Saudi International - an announcement which, among other things, comes before the 2021 schedule is available to us plebs. Presumably we should prepare for the run of Middle East events which traditional starts things off but, you know, something official would be nice.

Anyway, back to the story itself and one of the most ham-fisted headlines you could ever wish to read: 'European Ryder Cup Stars Take Aim on 2021 Saudi International'. Fortunately for these nice rich men who make the journey east, they are not outspoken women of the kingdom, who are more likely to have someone taking aim at them than vice versa.

"I really like the fact we get to play a part in introducing golf to a whole new audience in a new region," said one high-profile member of the field. It's this sort of b*llocks we could all do without. The high-profile players are there because they're being paid to be there and because they can earn a lot of undoubtedly important ranking points. It has nothing - precisely nothing - to do with a desire to broaden horizons. To suggest as much is simply not true. There are many countries with potential to cultivate a new golfing audience. They will get help from the best players in the sport if they pay for it.

It is of course easy for me to simplify things from an uncompromised position. I cannot say for sure that if I was offered an eye-watering sum of money, or the chance to dramatically enhance my career, or both, all for visiting a country like Saudi Arabia, that I would turn it down. I can fully understand why members of the Ladies European Tour made the trip recently, because in most cases they really do need the money. And it's difficult for players to take a stand in isolation and potentially miss out on the Ryder Cup as a consequence.

Doubtless too there has been pressure from the European Tour, who shouldn't be there in the first place yet face their own financial and existential pressures, so it is not a surprise that various names have been confirmed. It was however disappointing to read that Paul Casey will make the trip. Casey is a Unicef ambassador who said last year that 'signing a deal to go there and play, I'd be a hypocrite if I did that'.

What exactly has changed is not yet clear. Perhaps he intends to win the tournament and then donate the money to Loujain al-Hathloul, jailed and tortured for almost three years for having the temerity to campaign for the right for women to drive, which they were granted just after her arrest. Or else his priorities have changed. Perhaps we'll find out in February after golf takes a necessary break for Christmas.

Golf on Sporting Life

• Final-round preview of the Alfred Dunhill - published Saturday evening

Golf on TV

Saturday

• Alfred Dunhill Championship - 1000-1430, Sky Sports Golf

Sunday

• Alfred Dunhill Championship - 1000-1430, Sky Sports Golf

The big-hitters

Finally, darts and boxing, the two other sports which make up the brunt of our weekend coverage along with all of the above, UFC, and NFL.

Darts' World Championship is on the horizon and I wondered whether that fact had played a part in Michael van Gerwen's improved form of late. The three-time world champion reached the quarter-finals of the Grand Slam last week, and his group-stage averages were largely impressive. Then he thumped Gary Anderson 10-2, before blowing it against Simon Whitlock in a thrilling quarter-final.

Watching MVG fold in the way he did there was of course disconcerting, but the bigger picture is encouraging and I did half expect Chris Hammer, our resident darts expert, to put him up for this weekend's Players Championship event. He has not done so and offered this in explanation: "If he suddenly goes back to MVG of old then yes but he just looks like a normal 'very good' player at the moment. Why back him when Michael Smith and Jose de Sousa and others are 16/1 and bigger?"

Fair, I suppose.

As for boxing, Saturday night's British heavyweight clash between Daniel Dubois and Joe Joyce has everyone talking. Will the youth and power of Dubois see him produce the most eye-catching stoppage of his burgeoning career, or will the relentless unorthodoxy of Joyce make for a surprise result? Chris Oliver's betting preview is, in my opinion, pretty much as good as it gets.

More previews on Sporting Life

• Chris Oliver's Dubois v Joyce preview and tips
• Chris Hammer on the Players Championship Finals

More sport on TV

Saturday

• Dubois v Joyce and undercard - 1900-2300, BT Sport
• Players Championship Finals - 1900-2300, ITV4
• Wales v England (rugby union) - 1600, Amazon Prime
• France v Italy (rugby union) - 2000, Amazon Prime
• Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying - 1545, Sky Sports

Sunday

• Players Championship Finals - 1300 & 1900, ITV4
• Ireland v Georgia (rugby union) - 1400, Channel 4
• Bahrain Grand Prix race - 1510, Sky Sports