This Week: A late winner

This Week: A late winner

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

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

Laura: My name’s Laura. If you want to listen and read at the same time we have a transcript of this podcast on the Premier Skills English website.

Rich: In Matchweek 7, there were good wins for Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs and Manchester City, a Halloween thriller at Villa Park and Manchester City women won the FA Cup at Wembley Stadium.

Jack: We’re going to look at three headlines from this weekend’s action and after each, we’ll look at a couple of useful phrases. 

Laura: 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.

Rich: 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. 

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

Laura: The words and phrases we are looking at this week are: an assist, a late winner, injury-time, extra-time, spot-kick and to race into.

Rich: As it was Halloween last weekend listen out for one Halloween phrase in each headline.

Jack: Later on we’ll also have a language challenge for you to have a go at so you need to be ready for that.

Headline 1

Jack: Chelsea hit form, City win and Liverpool go back to the top.

Rich: Chelsea beat Burnley 3-0 away from home to stretch their unbeaten run to six matches. The Morrocan international, Hakim Ziyech was the man of the match - grabbing a goal and an assist. Manchester City’s Kyle Walker came back to haunt his former club - Sheffield United with Walker getting the only goal of the game. Liverpool are back on top of the Premier League. They had to come back from behind but Diogo Jota got a late winner for the Reds.

Laura: That was a great win for Chelsea, especially because they were playing away in Russia only a couple of days before.

Jack: Yes, but not so good for Burnley or Sheffield United - they are both still to win after seven games.

Rich: Let’s look at a bit of vocabulary. Our first word this week is an assist.

Laura: Hakim Ziyech got a goal and an assist for Chelsea.

Jack: An assist is a pass to a player who then scores a goal. Ziyech passed to Timo Werner who scored.

Laura: Tottenham’s Harry Kane has the most assists this season. He has 8 assists already.

Rich: In general, the word assist is much more common as a verb and it means to help somebody but when we’re talking about football the word assist is much more common as a noun.

Jack: When we use a verb to talk about the player who passes to the goalscorer or creates an opportunity to score we use the phrasal verb to set up.

Laura: Hakim Ziyech set up Timo Werner. Hakim Ziyech made the assist.

Rich: Our next phrase is a late winner. Liverpool scored a late winner against West Ham.

Jack: A winner is a goal that wins the match for your team. A late winner is a winning goal scored in the last few minutes of a match.

Laura: I’d say that the phrase a late winner is used for winning goals that are scored after the 80th minute or thereabouts.

Rich: Before we move on to our second headline did you notice any language connected to Halloween in the first headline?

Jack: We said that Kyle Walker came back to haunt his former club.

Laura: Normally, ghosts haunt castles and old buildings but we can also say a player comes back to haunt an old club.

Rich: It means that a player returns to an old club and causes problems - usually by scoring against their former club.

Jack: Let’s move on to our second headline.

Headline 2

Laura: FA Cup glory for City.

Jack: Manchester City lifted the women’s FA Cup for the third time with an extra-time win against Everton at Wembley. United States midfielder Sam Mewis put City ahead at the break but Everton showed no fear against the favourites and equalised when France’s Valerie Gauvin headed home. Georgia Stanway put City back ahead in extra-time and Janine Beckie sealed the win with an injury-time strike.

Rich: A great win for City and another piece of silverware to add to the trophy cabinet.

Laura: It was the 50th women’s FA cup final. It was actually last season’s Final which was delayed because of covid.

Jack: Let’s look at some language. The phrases we’re going to look at from the headline are extra-time and injury-time.

Rich: The final went to extra-time because the scores were level after 90 minutes.

Laura: Extra-time is the additional 30 minutes that are played to decide a winner in cup competitions.

Jack: Manchester City won after extra-time. When we see results online we often see in brackets the letters A E T. This means that one team won after extra time.

Rich: City scored in injury time. This is the additional or extra time that the referee adds because of injuries or substitutions.

Jack: So Manchester City scored in injury time in extra time.

Laura: Before we move on to our final headline did you notice any language connected to Halloween in the first headline?

Rich: We said that Everton showed no fear. To show no fear means not to be scared or frightened. 

Jack: We often talk about the need for small teams to show no fear against bigger teams if they want to win or a player needs to show no fear on his or her debut.

Laura: Let’s look at our final headline.

Headline 3

Rich: Arsenal and Spurs win on All Saints Day. 

Laura: Arsenal won 1-0 away at Old Trafford thanks to a Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang spot-kick which leaves Manchester United down in fifteenth place. Gareth Bale got a late winner for Spurs as they won 2-1 at Brighton and Southampton beat Aston Villa 4-3. The Saints raced into a 4-0 lead before Villa scored three times but couldn’t quite come back from the dead.

Jack: A great win for Arsenal. 

Rich: It seems that Manchester United play brilliantly on the break but find it difficult to break down teams who are set up to defend.

Laura: A lot of language to analyse in that sentence, Rich - maybe next week. Our first phrase from the headline is spot-kick.

Jack: A spot-kick is a penalty - a penalty kick. We can say that Arsenal earned a penalty or they earned a spot-kick. The spot is where you place the ball before a penalty. Aubameyang scored from the spot.

Rich: The other phrase we want to look at is to race into. We said the Saints raced into a 4-0 lead.

Laura: The phrase raced into is used to describe a team that starts very quickly and scores a goal or a few goals.

Jack: We could say a team raced into an early lead this would mean that a team scored early in a match. Southampton raced into a 4-0 lead this means they scored four times early in the game.

Rich: Before we move on did you notice any language connected to Halloween in our final headline?

Laura: The phrase was to come back from the dead. We said that Villa nearly came back from the dead. They were losing 4-0 and then scored three times.

Jack: In football, to come back from the dead means to stage a remarkable fightback when all seems lost. Outside of football, it’s used to speak about zombies - they come back from the dead, don’t they? 

Rich: OK. We’ve looked at three stories and six bits of vocabulary in our headlines. The words and phrases we’ve looked at are: an assist, a late winner, injury-time, extra-time, spot-kick and to race into.

Laura: And our three Halloween phrases were: to haunt a former club, to show no fear and to come back from the dead.

Prediction

Jack: It’s time for this week’s Premier League prediction. Last time Rich predicted a win for Arsenal at Old Trafford and that’s what happened.

Rich: Yes, there was no prediction curse. You must have been relieved about that, Jack.

Laura: This week sees the biggest match of the season with Liverpool making the trip to the Etihad to play Manchester City. What’s going to happen, Jack?

Jack: It’s a big match, isn’t it? And neither team have been looking brilliant but Liverpool have been winning and went back to the top after their win against West Ham last weekend. City also won - away at Sheffield United and did look good in the Champions League. I think there is more pressure on the City for this match - they have to win. Liverpool are depleted in defence and City are understrength in attack but I think City will manage to get all three points. Final score: Manchester City 2-1 Liverpool

Rich: Yeah, I’m nervous about this one and you could be right although I still think we will finish above them.

Laura: We want all of you to make your predictions for this match and all the Matchweek 8 fixtures on the Premier Skills English website.

Language Challenge

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

Rich: Earlier we looked at the phrase to come back from the dead. Here are three more football sentences that use phrases with come.

Laura: What do you think is the missing word?

Jack: Liverpool came from ****** to beat West Ham.

Rich: Southampton’s defence came totally ****** in the last few minutes.

Laura: Everton just came up ****** the better team at the weekend.

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

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.

Laura: 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.

Jack: Bye for now and enjoy your football.