Saturday sport: Leinster and Connacht face off in URC

Soccer

Premier League

Manchester City will be hoping for an early Christmas present of an uptick in form this afternoon.

The Premier League champions go to Aston Villa at 12.30pm having won just one of their last 11 games in all competitions.

High-flying Nottingham Forest are away to Brentford from 3pm.

At the same time, Ipswich will hope to get a first home win in the league when Newcastle visit Portman Road, while West Ham host Brighton.

After Arsenal came out on top against Crystal Palace in the EFL Cup in midweek, the two sides meet again in the evening game in the English top-flight. Kick-off at Selhurst Park is at 5.30pm.

Scottish Premiership

In the Scottish Premiership, Aberdeen can close the gap on league leaders Celtic this afternoon.

Hibernian are the visitors to Pittodrie for a 3pm start.

Rugby

Leinster and Connacht go toe-to-toe in the second of this weekend's URC interpro derbies.

RG Snyman and Jordie Barrett both start for the hosts, while the Westerners welcome Bundee Aki, Mack Hansen and Finlay Bealham back to their starting 15.

Kick-off at the Aviva Stadium is at 5.30pm.

Darts

Luke Littler sets off on his PDC World Darts Championship campaign tonight.

The 2024 finalist has a second-round meeting with Ryan Meikle in the evening session at Ally Pally in London.

Five-time champion Raymond van Barneveld also opens his account this evening, taking on Nick Kenny.

Also tonight, 13th seed Danny Noppert faces Ryan Joyce.

In the afternoon match-ups, Fermanagh's Brendan Dolan is up against Lok Yin Lee of Hong Kong, and 15th seed Chris Dobey meets Alexander Merkx.

Boxing

Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk meet in their massive heavyweight rematch in Saudi Arabia this evening.

The Ukrainian boxer puts his WBC, WBO and WBA belts on the line.

The ring walks are due to get underway at about 10.15pm Irish Time.