BLUFFER’S GUIDE TO THE SPORTING WEEKEND - Keepers in command, DC drives on and hairy tales of tennis topknots

Bluffer gives us all the information we need to take into the the sporting weekend as the Premier League returns and tennis crowns a champion.

It has been a strange and traumatic week in which sport has necessarily been overshadowed, but some kind of normal service returns this weekend as the Premier League rumbles back into life after the international break.

Headlining the fixture list is Manchester City’s encounter with Liverpool, which not only offers Liverpool fans an opportunity to boo their former hero Raheem Sterling on his new home turf, but also brings together two goalkeepers who - as any football bluffer will no doubt know - are by the most obvious measure the best in their league this year.

Arsenal’s Petr Cech continues his relentless progress towards the all-time record in the career-shutout list, but when Liverpool’s Simon Mignolet runs out at the City of Manchester Stadium on Saturday evening he will be facing the only keeper with a better record than his own this year.

Liverpool’s netminder has kept four clean sheets in the Premier League so far this season, bringing his total to 13 for the year. But England’s custodian Joe Hart, between the sticks for Manchester City, has been even tidier, finishing 14 matches this year with an unblemished record.

Goalkeeping records are always difficult to disentangle from the efforts of the players who shield them, and in this regard bluffers can also draw attention to the effectiveness of City’s defence, which has restricted opponents to just 26 shots on target in their 12 matches in the Premier League so far this season – fewer than any of their rivals.

Manchester City also have a link with another individual worthy of bluffers’ attention this weekend: Sylvain Distin, who if he starts for AFC Bournemouth in their visit to Swansea on Saturday will become the first foreign outfield player to reach 450 Premier League starts. The 37-year-old French defender first appeared at the top level in England with Newcastle United in 2001, and has since turned out for Manchester City, Portsmouth, Everton and most recently Bournemouth.

Bluffers may like to challenge their friends to come up with the names of the two foreign players who have beaten Distin’s current 449 mark, with the further hint that both are goalkeepers: the American Brad Friedel, who made 450 starts, and Australia’s Mark Schwarzer, still some way ahead of Distin having started 514 Premier League matches.

The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in east London this weekend hosts a peculiar event which rather puts into perspective arguments about how the stadium will adapt to life as a football venue when it becomes home to West Ham United next season.

Stadium architecture bluffers (should any exist) may like to point out that any difficulties encountered in converting an athletics stadium to a football venue surely pale into insignificance compared to the transformation of the venue for this weekend, as the playing area has been largely Tarmacked over to host the International Race of Champions.

This petrolheads’ jamboree pits a handful of current and recently retired Formula One drivers (Jenson Button, Sebastian Vettel, David Coulthard) against a motley crew of riders and racers from other powerful disciplines (rallyiste Petter Solberg, biker Mick Doohan, cyclist-turned-tin-topper Chris Hoy).

The competitors pilot a variety of high-speed buggies around a necessarily tight and twisty circuit and much contact and amusement is guaranteed. You might think that the current F1 drivers would be the class of the field, but the wily automotive bluffer will know that the grizzled veteran Coulthard knows all the tricks of this gimmicky game and triumphed in last year’s edition in Barbados.

Meanwhile, at the O2 the titans of the tennis court complete their seasonal formalities with the concluding matches of the ATP Tour Finals. The near-veteran Roger Federer was the first to qualify for the final stages, while Scotland’s finest racket-wielder struggled with his serve in the round-robin matches.

Bluffers at courtside may wish to observe that while Andy Murray may yet finish his year at a career-high world ranking of No2, he has hardly done so in style while registering a seasonal low on his first serve last week - only 37 per cent of his shots with that weapon succeeding as he was demolished by Rafael Nadal.

Murray seemed to ascribe some of his difficulties against the Spaniard to hair-management issues, even taking a pair of scissors to the offending forelock during a break in play. Bluffers with long memories will recall fondly the early days on the Tour of Andre Agassi, who often took to the court with a mane worthy of a shampoo model - but only achieved significant global success when he chopped it all off and played with less fuzz than the balls he was smiting.