Bluffer’s Guide To The Weekend: Manchester City on the verge of history, Will Jose Mourinho be P’d off?, Sebastian Vettel set for F1 record

You may feel, with Manchester United winning in Europe, Chelsea pulling off an audacious transfer coup and mutiny among the faithful at Sunderland, that Planet Football is settling into its usual orbit.

But extraordinary possibilities abound this weekend, and the wily bluffer will have the statistical wherewithal to wow any audience.

Take Manchester City, for example. They’ve started well, better than any of the other big guns, and the casual observer might suggest that they are on a bit of a roll, without knowing the epic scale and scope of the roll that they are on.

City are poised, in fact, to break a century-old club record: if they beat Everton at Goodison Park on Sunday they will notch up nine top-flight wins in succession for the first time since September 1912, when managers wore straw boaters and players called them “Sir”. Manuel Pellegrini may have to hold off on the headgear, though: City have won on just three of their previous 18 visits to Everton’s home ground.

Their rivals at the top of the table, Leicester City, are also poised to make history: never in all their days have the club won their first three matches in the top tier of English football. On the bright side they play host to Tottenham Hotspur, who are still at that stage of the season when Daniel Levy is pretending to look for the key to the cashbox. Less encouragingly for Leicester, Spurs’ Harry Kane scored a hat-trick the last time these two sides met, in March.

Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho would be forgiven a smirk now that his medical issues are behind him and a shiny new forward has been poached from under the battered nose of Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal. Pedro will be available for selection against West Bromwich Albion on Sunday, but not all things “P” are good omens for Mourinho.

Tony Pulis will be in the opposing dug-out at the Hawthorns, and all six of Mourinho’s last six Premier League defeats have been inflicted by managers whose surnames start with a P: Pulis himself, Poyet, Pardew, Pochettino, Pulis again and Pellegrini. Note the two wins for Pulis: no manager has won three times against Mourinho in the Premier League: Tony P could become the first this weekend.

Away from the bright lights, West Ham will be hoping to bank some comfortable home points against struggling new boys Bournemouth, and a glance at the form book offers some reassurance for Hammers’ manager Slaven Bilic: the Upton Park club are unbeaten in their last five matches against the Cherries.

But accomplished bluffers will be aware of the significant absence of West Ham’s regular keeper Adrian, who is suspended. Into the breach steps Darren Randolph, who joined the east London club from Birmingham City in the summer. Randolph has conceded no fewer than 16 goals in his last three appearances against AFC Bournemouth, including a round dozen in two matches last season.

Wrenching our gaze away from football we glance briefly at The Oval, where if it isn’t raining England will be hoping to finish their summer on a triumphant note by winning the dead rubber in the final Ashes Test against Australia.

Bluffers will be aware that a 4-1 final tally would be the best that England have ever achieved in a home Ashes series – and also aware that greater challenges lie ahead against Pakistan and South Africa.

Rain can also confidently be predicted to welcome Formula One’s drivers back from their sun-soaked summer holidays when the circus reconvenes at Spa in the Ardennes forest of Belgium. This is by some way the longest circuit on the calendar – it’s more than 7km – so long in fact that as it skirts three villages the weather at one extremity can be entirely different from conditions at the other.

This has relevance for a bluffworthy item of paddock discussion that surfaces every year at Spa: is it possible to take the up/down, left/right/left switchback at Eau Rouge flat-out in the current cars? The drivers reckon the answer this year is yes – just – but not in the drizzle.

It has been a good week for taciturn Finn Kimi Raikkonen, and the veteran approaches the Belgian Grand Prix not only with a re-signed Ferrari contract for next year tucked into his overalls, but also with by far the best record of any driver at the old-fashioned track.

Raikkonen has four past wins at Spa, a fifth of his 20 career triumphs. Of his rivals on Sunday only Sebastian Vettel, with two, has scored more than a single victory at the track.

Felipe Massa, Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button and Daniel Ricciardo have one victory apiece to their name, and bluffers will like to know that the big name with the Spa-shaped gap on his CV is Fernando Alonso, who has 32 career wins but has never been the first man to take the chequered flag in Belgium.

A final little F1 bluff of note: Sebastian Vettel could this weekend become the man with the most points in F1 history. Victory at the last race in Hungary drew him level, on 1,778 points, with… Fernando Alonso.