This Week: A Record Victory

Hello my name’s Jack and welcome to the weekly round-up called This Week on Premier Skills English.

In this week, we’ve got lots of interesting words and phrases to help you talk about football in English.

If you are listening to this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify you can also visit the Premier Skills English website at britishcouncil.org/premierskillsenglish where you’ll be able to download the podcast.

On the Premier Skills English website, you can read the transcript and join the Premier Skills English community by completing a language task in the comments section. This will really help you remember the new words and phrases from the stories from the Premier League.

The words and phrases I am focusing on this week are: enthusiasm, precise, scruffy, spell, deflection, blunder, victory, to bode (well), and ruthless.

Listen out for these phrases in the headlines and stories.

After each story there will be a short language focus and then there will be a task for you to complete and then at the end of the podcast there will be a new football phrase.

Football Phrase

But before that, I want to look at last week’s football phrase. If you didn’t hear it last week, here’s one more chance to guess now.

The phrase is the **** **** ****. This is how matches that finish even on aggregate are decided. This is difficult to describe without using the words in the phrase. So... this way of deciding the winner is based on the number of times each team scores when they are not playing at home. If the score is 3-3 on aggregate but one team scored twice when they were at their opponent’s ground and their opponent scored all of their goals at home, the team that scored their goals in their opponent’s stadium would be declared the winner.

Congratulations to Wilson2103 from Colombia, Vietnguyenngo from Vietnam, Hayato from Japan, Hsn from Turkey, Hiracky16 from Japan, Cukongss from Indonesia, Harrykien from Vietnam, Hajime from Japan, Taher Koshen from Somalia and Tarent_t from Iran. You all worked out that the phrase I was looking for was the away goal rule.

And just to remind everyone, all of your comments on the Premier Skills English website are moderated by me before they are published. So you can write the word normally in your comment and I will edit your answer if you are correct so it doesn’t give the answer away to everyone else.

OK! There were some big matches at the weekend. In the stories today, we have a significant landmark for Harry Kane, an emphatic victory for Liverpool and the perfect start for Arsenal continues.

Let’s get on with the first story.

Kane’s brace maintains Spurs’ unbeaten start

When Spurs travelled to the City Ground to face Premier League newcomers Nottingham Forest, they faced a team fresh with enthusiasm that knows how to hold the ball on their home turf. Forest flooded the midfield and quickly spread the play, while keeping the pressure on the penalty box, racking up 17 attempts on goal. The home side had most of the ball and all of the noise, but they didn’t have Harry Kane.

After just five minutes, a precise touch opened up the defence. The goal was shielded from Kane by a defender, but that also blocked the keeper. Kane took the shot early, calling it a ‘scruffy strike’, nonetheless it beat defender and keeper, gave spurs an early lead and counted as Kane’s 200th league goal of his career.

In the second half, Richarlison flicked a perfectly placed cross over for Kane who got his 201st league goal with a diving header.

Final score: Nottingham Forest 0 - Tottenham Hotspur 2

The words I want to talk about from this story are enthusiasm, precise and scruffy.

Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm is a noun and it means a feeling of energy and excitement about something. If you have enthusiasm for something, you are enthusiastic about it. People are normally enthusiastic about things they love doing. My kids are really enthusiastic about playing games and going swimming. If we’re going swimming, they are full of energy and positivity. However, they are less enthusiastic about tidying their bedrooms. If you have a bad experience, you might lose your enthusiasm for something.

Precise

Precise is an adjective that means exact. I think we use it most commonly to talk about time. So the precise time is the time to the second. You might talk about the precise time that something happened. You can also use precise when you are talking about where something is. So if someone asks you where you are, you might reply with the town or city that you are in and then they might ask you for your precise location. In football, precise usually means very accurate. A precise shot goes exactly where the striker wants to place it. Some teams practice precise passing. The adverb form, precisely, is also common.

Scruffy

Scruffy is an adjective that means a little messy and untidy. I was always a bit scruffy when I was a child. My hair never stayed brushed for long and I was always playing outside and getting my clothes dirty. The opposite is smart. Scruffy isn’t terrible, I mean, a scruffy town could be cleaned up if someone picked up the rubbish and maybe did a bit of painting. It’s not like after a disaster. It’s just a bit messy. I don’t think it’s that commonly used in football English, but I think it’s easy to understand what Harry Kane meant. His first goal wasn’t a beautiful strike that will be repeated in slow motion in highlight reels, but it was still a goal.

Let’s move on to the next story.

Arsenal comeback maintains a perfect start to the season

Fulham’s trip across London to the Emirates looked like it might have been the bump to bring the Gunners back to reality. In the first half, Arsenal looked nervous as if they feared their perfect spell would be broken. They enjoyed the lion’s share of possession, but were not pressing as hard up the pitch. And then, shortly after half time, Gabriel Magalhães made a mistake on the edge of the area and gifted an opportunity to Aleksandar Mitrovic who put Fulham ahead. The crowd didn’t falter in their support and cheered the Gunners on to equalise. Bukayo Saka slipped the ball through to Martin Odegaard whose powerful strike took a deflection and went into the bottom corner of the net.

At 1-1, both teams were playing for the win, but it wasn’t until the 86th minute when Gabriel Magalhães made amends for his first half howler - OK, it wasn’t a howler, probably more a blunder, but he made amends when he tapped the ball in during a scramble in the box.

Final score: Arsenal 2 - Fulham 1

The words I want to talk about from this story are: spell, deflection and blunder.

Spell

The word spell, when it’s a noun, has several meanings. In the story, I used it as a bit of a pun. So the first meaning was a period of time. So I could say, I worked for a spell as a sous-chef in an Italian restaurant. The second meaning is a series of words that have magic power and also the state of being controlled by someone who has used a spell on them. You can cast a spell on someone or put a spell on someone. When you are under the control of such magic, you are under a spell. If you do something to stop the magic from working, you break the spell. I said that I feared that Arsenal’s spell of continuous wins would be broken. I used the noun spell to describe the period of time and the verb broken because this perfect start to the season seems like Arsenal are under a magic spell.

Deflection

We have covered the word deflection before in this podcast, but it’s quite advanced football English so I think it’s worth looking at again. A deflection is a change of direction caused by hitting something. It’s similar to bounce, only when something bounces, it returns in the opposite direction, but a deflection is a change of direction of less than 90 degrees; it still goes in the general direction. We also use the word to describe the event, the moment the ball strikes the thing that changes the direction.

Blunder

A blunder is a serious mistake. I mentioned the word in last week’s podcast when I said that a blunder is not quite as bad as a howler, but it’s still a big mistake. When a footballer makes a blunder, the crowd will be a bit sympathetic, but if they make a howler, then the crowd will probably laugh.

I think we often use blunder to talk about mistakes that politicians and political commentators make. Not so much about serious mistakes that might hurt people, but when they say things that are wrong or that make them look silly. For example, if a politician gets the name of a country wrong on a foreign visit.

Let’s move on to the final story.

Liverpool record their biggest ever win

Liverpool beat AFC Bournemouth 9-0 to equal the Premier League record for the biggest-ever victory. The Bournemouth manager Scott Parker described the loss as the most painful experience of his career and it does not bode well for the Cherries for the rest of the season. Before the match, Liverpool had yet to win, with only 2 draws and a loss so when they got the scent of victory, they were ruthless with a standout performance by Roberto Firmino who set up the first three goals and then scored two of his own.

If AFC Bournemouth don’t get some more talent in the squad before transfer deadline day, the fans and players will have to expect some more painful matches. The manager admitted: “I feel sorry for the players because we are ill-equipped at this level.”

Final score: Liverpool 9 - AFC Bournemouth 0

The words I want to talk about from this story are: victory, to bode and ruthless.

Victory

A victory is a win. If you win a game it is a victory for you. The word is used most commonly to talk about sports. You might read that a team is celebrating a victory or that a team achieved an impressive victory. However, it’s also used quite a lot in civil court cases when someone takes a company to court. You often hear about legal victories for people who were hurt in industrial accidents.

To bode (well)

To bode well means to be a sign that things are going to be positive. I think that this is most commonly used in negative sentences. You will hear people say: ‘that doesn’t bode well’ meaning, that indicates or shows that things are not going to be good. You do sometimes hear that something bodes ill meaning it shows that things are going to go wrong and occasionally you’ll hear that something bodes disaster. But by far the most common collocation is not bode well - that doesn’t bode well.

Ruthless

The last word I want to look at from the stories today is ruthless. The word ruthless is negative, but the positive form has fallen out of use. You can’t be ruthful. The noun ruth still exists in some dictionaries but it is archaic or old fashioned. Ruth means pity or sympathy. So if you have no pity for someone, you act without thinking about how sad your actions make them. That is ruthless. You maye come across the collocation ruthless ambition which is a drive to succeed without any concern for other people. I can’t think of a better example of ruthlessness than Liverpool smashing AFC Bournemouth 9-0. I mean that’s not even humiliating, it’s just cruel. I understand that this has become the norm in football where there is so much money at stake; goal difference can make the difference between first and second place so every goal matters, but once a team is four or five goals down, you could relax a bit and let them breathe. And maybe, Liverpool did. Perhaps it wasn’t a completely ruthless display ... Perhaps 10-0 was too much, 9-0 was when the pity kicked in. I wonder if we’ll ever see a greater margin of victory.

OK. That’s 9 words or phrases today. The words and phrases from the stories were: enthusiasm, precise, scruffy, spell, deflection, blunder, victory, to bode (well), and ruthless.

Listen to the headlines one more time to hear these words and phrases in context.

Kane’s brace maintains Spurs’ unbeaten start

When Spurs travelled to the City Ground to face Premier League newcomers Nottingham Forest, they faced a team fresh with enthusiasm that knows how to hold the ball on their home turf. Forest flooded the midfield and quickly spread the play, while keeping the pressure on the penalty box, racking up 17 attempts on goal. The home side had most of the ball and all of the noise, but they didn’t have Harry Kane.

After just five minutes, a precise touch opened up the defence. The goal was shielded from Kane by a defender, but that also blocked the keeper. Kane took the shot early, calling it a ‘scruffy strike’, nonetheless it beat defender and keeper, gave spurs an early lead and counted as Kane’s 200th league goal of his career.

In the second half, Richarlison flicked a perfectly placed cross over for Kane who got his 201st league goal with a diving header.

Final score: Nottingham Forest 0 - Tottenham Hotspur 2

Arsenal comeback maintains a perfect start to the season

Fulham’s trip across London to the Emirates looked like it might have been the bump to bring the Gunners back to reality. In the first half, Arsenal looked nervous as if they feared their perfect spell would be broken. They enjoyed the lion’s share of possession, but were not pressing as hard up the pitch. And then, shortly after half time, Gabriel Magalhães made a mistake on the edge of the area and gifted an opportunity to Aleksandar Mitrovic who put Fulham ahead. The crowd didn’t falter in their support and cheered the Gunners on to equalise. Bukayo Saka slipped the ball through to Martin Odegaard whose powerful strike took a deflection and went into the bottom corner of the net.

At 1-1, both teams were playing for the win, but it wasn’t until the 86th minute when Gabriel Magalhães made amends for his first half howler - OK, it wasn’t a howler, probably more a blunder, but he made amends when he tapped the ball in during a scramble in the box.

Final score: Arsenal 2 - Fulham 1

Liverpool record their biggest ever win

Liverpool beat AFC Bournemouth 9-0 to equal the Premier League record for the biggest-ever victory. The Bournemouth manager Scott Parker described the loss as the most painful experience of his career and it does not bode well for the Cherries for the rest of the season. Before the match, Liverpool had yet to win, with only 2 draws and a loss so when they got the scent of victory, they were ruthless with a standout performance by Roberto Firmino who set up the first three goals and then scored two of his own.

If AFC Bournemouth don’t get some more talent in the squad before transfer deadline day, the fans and players will have to expect some more painful matches. The manager admitted: “I feel sorry for the players because we are ill-equipped at this level.”

Final score: Liverpool 9 - AFC Bournemouth 0

Language Challenge

Right, now it’s time for you to think about the language again.

Here are 9 sentences with gaps in them and you have to complete the gaps with the correct form of the words and phrases from this podcast.

Number 1. Some people believe that to succeed in this world you have to be _______ ... and there’s a special word for those people.

Number 2. When he asked me to go with him to the table tennis tournament, I wasn’t sure, but his __________  was infectious and I got carried away by the excitement and had a great time.

Number 3. When the kids got back from their camping trip, they all looked a bit ______ and in need of a wash.

Number 4. The decision to delay the move turned out to be a major _______ and cost the club millions of pounds.

Number 5. The increases in energy costs do not ____ well for the winter.

Number 6. The new signing scored with an inspiring goal at the _______ moment that the team needed.

Number 7. Liverpool scored a record equalling _______ against Bournemouth when the won 9-0.

Number 8. Arsenal equalised when Odegaard’s strike took a __________ off the Fulham defender.

Number 9. Before Arteta took over at Arsenal, he was for a _____ the assistant manager at Manchester City.

Leave your answers in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website and I will go through them next week.

Football Phrase

Now it’s time for this week’s football phrase.

This week, I’m looking for a noun that comes from a verb. I think this is quite an easy one, but it’s a little bit strange now. The word is _____ and what makes it interesting is it’s the place where people do the opposite at a football match. If you go to watch a match live at the club, you will get tickets in the ____. At Anfield, one of the ____ behind a goal is called the Kop. It was first built in 1906 and got its name from a battle on a hill in South Africa in which many soldiers from Liverpool were killed.

If you know the answer, be sure to leave it in a comment on the page for this podcast on Premier Skills English.

Before I finish, here are the answers to last week’s language challenge.

Number 1: They lost the match 1-0, but got through to the final on aggregate.

Number 2: Manchester United fans will take some comfort from the team’s performance against Liverpool, but they still aren’t satisfied with the management of the club.

Number 3: They seriously underestimated the costs of opening a new restaurant and are way over budget.

Number 4: Only after I’d published the podcast did I work out that I was mispronouncing his name which was a bit of a howler.

Number 5: When Leeds scored their third goal, the game was pretty much in the bag.

Number 6: I know we’re only at the beginning of the season, but my money on Arsenal to win the title.

That’s all I have time for today. Before I finish, I just wanted to say that I hope you found this podcast useful, and I hope all of you stay fit and healthy and safe.

Bye for now and enjoy your football.