Your Guardian sport weekend: ATP Finals, Albania v England and NFL

Will Magee kickstarts the football weekend with our unmissable gateway to all the action, with breaking news and updates. The Premier League takes a break for the international programme and he’ll be looking forward to some key fixtures – Greece v Scotland, Switzerland v Graham Potter’s Sweden, Liechtenstein v Wales – as well as developments from the England camp as they prepare to face Albania on Sunday. Why not join the conversation?Round nine in the Women’s Super League brings a Manchester derby. Four points separate the rivals, with City at the summit on 21 and United in third. Andrée Jeglertz’s City – with no midweek European fixture to tax their powers of recovery – are on the hottest of streaks and seeking an eighth straight win in the league

The Beta Blacks: Alpha days are gone for New Zealand and their aura with it

Thursday afternoon, and the All Blacks are out on the training ground around the back of the Lensbury hotel on the banks of the Thames, it’s a warm autumn day, and the mood is pretty free and easy. Will Jordan is practising catching high balls, Beauden Barrett is taking shots at goal, the forwards are packing up after running some drills, head coach, Scott Robertson, is chatting happily with the media before his press conference. Someone asks if his team are looking to make a statement against England on Saturday, the sort that reminds everyone exactly how good they are.“A statement performance?” Robertson says, perplexed. “We’re just looking for a result

Ill-advised Benn-Eubank Jr rematch another example of boxing’s cynicism

Boxing has always been a deeply cynical business. The overwhelming objective for most promoters, and many fighters, is to rake in as much money as quickly as possible without any undue concern about looking crass or desperate.Anyone who has spent just a little time in the company of boxers will understand that they deserve whatever cash they can make out of such a hard and dangerous activity. But promoters have ransacked the pockets of boxing fans through the decades while peddling anything and everything from Joe Louis’s “Bum of the Month” club to this week’s proposal that Anthony Joshua may make tens of millions of dollars if he steps into the ring to face Jake Paul, the former YouTuber, next month.Saturday night’s rematch between Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr is a little different

Who is your favourite cricketer in the history of the men’s Ashes?

It had to be one or the other: the man who has scored the most runs in Ashes history or the man who has taken the most wickets. In the end, Shane Warne’s 195 wickets beat Don Bradman’s 5,028 runs. But, Warne is about more than numbers. His style, humour and charisma made him the kind of player you rooted for even when he lined up against your team. He was a joy to watch

Ford and George urge England to make their mark by beating New Zealand

Maro Itoje’s England have been urged to cement their place in sporting legend by becoming only the nation’s ninth side to defeat the All Blacks.England head into Saturday’s crunch encounter as marginal favourites, aiming for a first Twickenham win over New Zealand for 13 years, and George Ford has revealed that the former captain Jamie George has issued a call to arms, imploring his teammates to carve themselves a slice of history.Steve Borthwick’s side are on a nine-match winning run but England’s men have lost their past three Tests against New Zealand and have not beaten them since the 2019 World Cup semi-final. The last time they defeated the All Blacks at Twickenham was in 2012, when Manu Tuilagi ran riot.Saturday’s match is the 47th meeting between the sides and England have triumphed on eight occasions in the fixture’s 120-year history but Borthwick’s troops sense their opportunity to make a name for themselves

Joe Root splutters but Ollie Pope prospers in England’s Ashes warm-up

Joe Root’s attempt to lay to rest the ghost of Australian failures past started with the addition of a fresh one, as his fourth Ashes tour started in brief and inglorious style. The world’s No 1 Test batter, the subject of much pre-series chatter because of his poor average on previous such trips, was the most notable failure as many of his teammates inflated their confidence along with their scores across another day of breezy cricket and indeed weather against the Lions at Lilac Hill, which the senior side ended, having been bowled out moments before the close, with 426, a lead of 51.Zak Crawley described it as “a flat wicket for sure” and with the atmosphere provided by the few dozen spectators similar, but with intense heat expected from the stands and pitch when the real action starts next Friday, it is not clear to what extent anyone is markedly more prepared now than they were a couple of days ago.“Cricket’s cricket, it’s time in the middle,” Crawley said. “We’re doing everything we can with what we’ve got and we feel like we’re going to be ready