This Week: Premier League Returns

Introduction

Laura: Hello my name’s Laura and welcome to our weekly round-up section called ‘This Week’ on Premier Skills English.

Rich: Hi there. I’m Rich. We’ve got lots of interesting words and phrases to help you talk about football in English.

Jack: And I’m Jack and we hope you are all staying well whether you are staying home or still going to work.

Laura: We’ve got three news stories connected to the Premier League for you. This week we’re focusing on the restart of the Premier League this Wednesday.

Rich: But we’re not only talking about what’s happening on the pitch;  we also have stories away from the pitch. 

Jack: This week, we’re talking about money that Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford has been raising for a good cause.

Rich: But our main reason for choosing these stories is so we can focus on some useful bits of vocabulary. We have football English for you and other words and phrases that are useful to learn.

Laura: And we want you to use and practise these words and phrases by interacting with Premier League fans from around the world in our comments section.

Jack: If you listen to us on Apple Podcasts, you can leave your comments in the review section. We do read all the reviews and would love to hear from you.

Rich: You can find all our latest content on the Premier Skills English homepage or the Premier Skills-British Council Facebook page. 

Laura: Don’t forget that we also have our weekly Premier Skills English podcast that is released every Friday. Every week we help you with some different vocabulary or an aspect of grammar.

Jack: Our latest podcast is called Learning Vocabulary: Pros and cons.

Rich: In the roleplay, I want to buy a new car and I’m looking at a couple of very different options.

Laura: We look at lots of different words and phrases you can use to talk about advantages and disadvantages. You can find the lesson on the homepage on the Premier Skills English website. 

Jack: You’re now going to hear our three headlines. After each headline, we’ll have a little discussion and look at some vocabulary. 

Rich: The words and phrases we are looking at this week are:  to get under way, wall-to-wall, to host, to clinch, vulnerable and valuable.

Laura: After the headlines, we want you to make a Premier League prediction and we have a language challenge for you to have a go at.

Headline 1

Rich: Blades look to cut down Villa as Premier League returns.

Jack: The Premier League restarts on Wednesday after a break of exactly 100 days. Aston Villa versus Sheffield United gets us under way and it will be wall-to-wall football for the next six weeks with Premier League clubs in action twice a week until the season finale on July 26th.

Laura: Just two more days! So there’s going to be at least one match every day for the next six weeks. Looks like I’ll be glued to the screen for most of the summer.

Rich: Yes, me too. I like that phrase to be glued to the screen. Glue, of course, is the sticky white substance we use to stick things together. To be glued to something means to give all your attention to that thing. 

Jack: Yes, lots of fans will be glued to the screen - nobody can go to the matches yet. They will all be played behind closed doors. 

Laura: Let’s have a look at a couple of phrases from the headline. We said Aston Villa versus Sheffield United will get us under way on Wednesday.

Rich: To get something under way is a phrase which means to start something. The football will get under way on Wednesday.

Jack: If something is under way it means it has started and it’s in progress. We might say that an investigation is under way to find out who committed the robbery or another example could be preparations for the celebration are under way.

Laura: The Premier League will be well under way by this time next week. Another interesting phrase from the headline is wall-to-wall.

Rich: We said that there will be wall-to-wall football for the next six weeks.

Jack: There is going to be lots of football on television over the next six weeks.

Laura: Wall-to-wall means happening all the time and is often used in connection with what’s on TV.

Rich: So wall-to-wall football means football is on TV all the time. Let’s take a look at our second headline.

Headline 2

Laura: Reds could clinch Premier League title in Merseyside Derby.

Jack: The Premier League title could be decided as early as Sunday when Everton host Liverpool in the Merseyside Derby. If Manchester City lose at home to Arsenal on Wednesday then Liverpool can clinch their first-ever Premier League title and their first league title since 1991 with a win over their local rivals.

Rich: Wow! To win it at Goodison Park would be brilliant but I’m not greedy. I don’t mind waiting a couple of days more. Liverpool fans have been waiting for thirty years!

Laura: Yes, I think it’s a foregone conclusion really. Liverpool are 25 points clear - nobody is going to catch them this season.

Jack: A foregone conclusion - let’s have a look at that phrase. 

Rich: When we say something is a foregone conclusion we are saying that something is certain to happen.

Laura: You might turn on a game and one team is winning 4-0. You might turn it off again because the result is a foregone conclusion.

Jack: Let’s have a look at a couple of verbs we used in this headline. We said that Everton host Liverpool. To host something means to organise an event in your home, stadium, city or country.

Rich: Russia hosted the last World Cup. Qatar are going to host the next World Cup. Everton are going to host Liverpool on Sunday.

Laura: The other verb I want to take a look at is clinch. We said Liverpool can clinch their first-ever Premier League title with a win against Everton.

Jack: To clinch something means to win or achieve something. It’s often used when it has taken a long time to achieve something or the process has been lengthy.

Rich: Liverpool are finally going to clinch the Premier League title after a 30-year wait.

Laura: OK, let’s take a look at our final headline.

Headline 3

Jack: Rashford raises millions for hungry kids.

Laura: Manchester United striker, Marcus Rashford, has raised over £20 million to provide millions of meals to vulnerable children in the UK. The striker, recently named the fifth most valuable player in Europe, has been working with a charity called Fareshare UK which works to make sure no child in the UK goes hungry.

Rich: Rashford has spoken a lot about the need to provide for people who are having financial difficulties and it’s obviously something that is close to his heart.

Jack: That’s a nice phrase to be close to someone’s heart. 

Laura: If something is close to someone’s heart it means that it is very, very important to them. Let’s have a look at a couple of adjectives from the headline.

Rich: The first is vulnerable. We said that the money raised by Marcus Rashford is for vulnerable children. We often talk about the people who are most vulnerable in our society.

Jack: The people who are most vulnerable are those that can be most easily hurt - either emotionally or physically. 

Rich: The word vulnerable can actually be used to talk about a football team’s defence too. We can say that a team might be vulnerable at corners or vulnerable to the counter-attack. It means they can be hurt there - they are weak at defending corners or the counter-attack.

Laura: Our final word this week is valuable. We said that Marcus Rashford has been named the fifth most valuable player in Europe. If something is valuable, or someone in this case, it is worth a lot of money or it is very useful.

Jack: I could say my house is my most valuable possession or that my most valuable experience was travelling around the world when I was younger.

Rich: In football, all players have a value and some are more valuable than others. In some sports, you might see the term MVP being used. This stands for most valuable player.

Laura: It’s used more in American sports and is used to describe the best player in a match or a series of matches. In the UK, we normally use Man of the Match or player of the tournament.

Jack: OK. We’ve looked at three stories and six bits of vocabulary in our headlines. The words and phrases we’ve looked at are: to get under way, wall-to-wall, to host, to clinch, vulnerable and valuable.

Rich: Have a listen to the headlines again and see if you understand the vocabulary we’ve looked at. 

Prediction

Jack: The Premier League returns this week which means so does our weekly Premier League match prediction.

Laura: Every week, Rich predicts the result of one Premier League match and we want you to make your prediction, too. 

Rich: Why don’t we all make a prediction? If one of us goes for a home win, another an away win and the other a draw one of us will always be right!

Jack: Doesn’t sound like fair play to me. You can do the prediction this week and we’ll take it in turns. Let’s see if our listeners are better at predicting than us.

Laura: So, which match are you going to talk about, Rich?

Rich: I’m going to talk about the Merseyside Derby this weekend. Liverpool’s trip to Everton is always one of the biggest matches of the season but this weekend’s match has added significance because the Reds could win the Premier League title. To be honest, I think Liverpool fans are thinking more about that than the actual match. The match is difficult to predict after a three-month break. What will fitness levels be like? Can the Liverpool players just go back to how they were playing a few months ago? I think Liverpool will win but will have to wait a few days more to be crowned Premier League Champions. Final score: Everton 1-2 Liverpool.

Jack: You can make your predictions on the Premier Skills English website in the comments section and talk about this match and the rest of the Premier League matches at the same time!

Language Challenge

Laura: To finish up the show we’ve got a quick language challenge connected to this week’s vocabulary.

Rich: We’ve been talking about the restart of the Premier League. We often see the letters ‘re’ at the beginning of words. It is what we call a prefix and means again or again and again.

Jack: Your challenge this week is to listen to three sentences and decide what the missing word is. All of them start with re.

Laura: The match finished 1-1. They will need a ______ to decide who goes through to the next round.

Rich: Don’t throw those bottles away. We can ______ them.

Jack: I love this restaurant. You get free ______ whenever you want.

Laura: We want you to write the correct answers on the Premier Skills English website where we have some more questions and activities connected to this week’s show for you.

Rich: Or write your answer on Apple Podcasts if that’s where you listen to us. Just write the answers in the review section and say hi.

Jack: Before we finish we just wanted to say that we hope you found this lesson useful and we hope that all of you stay fit and healthy and enjoy the Premier League restart.

Laura: Bye for now and enjoy your football.