This Week: Singing in the rain

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 want to talk about today are: a muddled clearance, pundits, the best by a mile, delighted, to be few and far between, to seal the win, a purple patch, a consolation goal and gorgeous.

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.

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.

For these last couple of weeks, I have been testing you with idioms that come from the world of football that are used in general English. Last week’s phrase was to**** *** ******* ** somebody.
This means to tell people about something bad that someone or more often some organisation is doing. We also use the noun *************, which I suppose could have been referee if we’d kept with the metaphor. So if you work for a company and you discover that they are breaking the law. If you tell a newspaper, you are ******* *** ******* ** your company.

Congratulations to Hsn from Turkey who was first this week. Congratulations to Mehmet Sisman, also from Turkey, GD26 from Russia, welcome to the website GD26. Well don to Sabanoleg from Ukraine, Goku from Japan, James from Nigeria - welcome to Premier Skills English James, another first time commenter. Congratulations Wilson2103 from Colombia and Vietnguyenngo from Vietnam.

You all managed to work out that the phrase I was looking for was to blow the whistle on somebody.

Listen till the end of the podcast to hear this week’s new football phrase.

OK! Now, it’s time to get on with this week’s three football stories!

Foxes finally find their form

Leicester City completely outplayed their hosts on Saturday at Goodison Park. Everton started strong and should have scored from at least one of a couple of early chances. Unfortunately that strong start didn’t last. Leicester looked by far the better team but it still took until the stroke of halftime for Youri Tielemans to put his side ahead after a muddled clearance rattled to his feet and he struck the ball beautifully from beyond the penalty area.

In the second half, James Maddison stood out. His dominance in the midfield was remarkable, earning strong praise from his manager and pundits who described his performance as the best by a mile. Having earned the assist for the first goal, he went on to set up Harvey Barnes whose emphatic finish swept beyond Pickford.

Final score: Everton 0 - Leicester City 2

The words and phrases I want to talk about from this story are a muddled clearance, pundits and the best by a mile.

The adjective muddled means badly organised or confusing. You can also get into a muddle, usually if you are trying to do something complicated. For example, if you are trying to build something like a lego model and you lose your place in the instructions, you might get into a muddle and not know what you should be putting where. In the story, I used the word muddled which is an adjective to describe a clearance. A clearance is usually a powerful kick that attempts to move the ball a long way away from the goal. When the ball is in your penalty area, instead of trying to control and pass the ball, you might just boot it away. That’s a clearance. In the story, an Everton defender tried to clear the ball, but it was blocked and bounced off a few players before it fell to Youri Tielemans.

The word pundit is used to describe a person who knows a lot about a topic and comments on events related to their specialised knowledge. Commonly, you get political pundits who comment on politics and sports pundits who comment on sports. These are not commentators who describe the action, but experts who comment afterwards. Often, football pundits are ex-players. On the BBC, Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer are the most famous pundits. The word is interesting because it comes from Sanskrit and originally meant ‘knowledge owner’ according to wikipedia.

The last phrase from this story that I want to talk about is the best by a mile. When we’re making comparisons, we often use distance as a metaphor. We say things like a Ferrari is far more expensive than a Ford. And we can use the same metaphor in superlative statements and say things like football is the best sport by far. If we want to say that it’s a lot better than all the other sports. A mile is a long way so if something is the best by a mile or even the best by miles, you mean it is much better than the other things.

Let's move on to the next story.

Villans triumph under Emery

Aston Villa delighted their fans with the first home win in a Premier League match against Manchester United since 1995. The Red Devils had their moments, times when they looked confident and in control, but these were few and far between.

Villa raced into the lead with early goals from Leon Bailey who found the bottom corner and Lucas Digne who scored from a free kick with a powerful shot into the top right corner.

It looked like United’s fortunes might be changing just before half time when Luke Shaw’s shot took a very lucky deflection off Jacob Ramsey’s back and halved the deficit. However, the 21-year-old Ramsey, who joined Aston Villa when he was just 6, got his name on the right side of the scoreboard when Ollie Watkins took the ball from the halfway line all the way to the penalty area. He held the ball for just long enough for Ramsey to charge up the pitch. The young midfielder powered the ball into the top corner, sealing the win for his club.

Final score: Aston Villa 3 - Manchester United 1

The words and phrases I want to talk about from this story are delighted, to be few and far between and to seal the win.

The adjective delighted means extremely happy about something. It’s only a B1 adjective but I thought it was a nice addition to the podcast because it’s a word I use a lot. If someone asks me to do something that I’m happy to do, I will say: I’d be delighted to do it. I think it feels very positive. If you are delighted to do something, you are extremely happy to do it. In the story, I said Aston Villa delighted their fans. They made their fans extremely happy. You could see the happiness on the faces and hear it in their singing. They were delighted.

The next phrase is to be few and far between. We use this idiom to talk about things that are rare and hard to find. So you might hear someone complain and say good jobs are few and far between these days. If you think about the literal meaning, you might say something like good music shops are few and far between. This means that there aren’t many good music shops and they are spread out so the shops have long distances between them. However, we normally use the idiom more figuratively and it just means very rare.

The last phrase I want to talk about from this story is to seal the win. The word seal has quite a few meanings. The verb form’s most common use means to close something securely, often so it can’t be opened easily. So you could seal the entrance to an abandoned building by putting boards over the door. In the olden days, there were official seals that were used to mark documents to show that they were official. You could get special sealing wax which was a bit like candle wax. You could melt a blob onto a document and then when it was wet, push a metal seal into the wax to leave an official imprint. This made the document official. In the story, I said that Ramsey’s goal sealed the win for his club. When he scored, it was like the win was finalised and sealed. There was no way that Manchester United were going to score two more goals so it was a bit like closing the scoreline or at least locking in the three points for Aston Villa.

Time to move on to the final story.

Magpies singing in the rain at St Mary’s

When Newcastle United’s manager Eddie Howe was interviewed after the match, he said that his team was not at their best. However, they were still good enough to pull off a convincing win which puts them third in the league. This has been a remarkable turnaround for the Magpies who were in 19th place this time last year when Eddie Howe took over.

Miguel Almiron, the Paraguayan midfielder opened the scoring after 35 minutes, extending his personal purple patch to 7 goals in 7 games. Chris Wood was brought on as a half-time substitute and doubled Newcastle’s lead when he swivelled on the ball in the area and popped it past Southampton’s keeper and Joe Willock made the game safe when he scored three minutes later.

The rain fell hard, but that didn’t dampen the spirits of the visitors. Romain Perraud did get a consolation goal just before full time only for Bruno Guimaraes to score again with a gorgeous goal.

Final score: Southampton 1 - Newcastle United 4

The words and phrases I want to talk about from this story are a purple patch, a consolation goal and gorgeous.

The phrase a purple patch is not a very commonly used phrase, but it came up in one of the articles I was reading about football this week and I liked it so much I wanted to include it. So a patch is an area that is somehow different from the area around it. If you tear your trousers you might sew a new piece of fabric over the hole to repair them. That piece of fabric is a patch. So ... if you have boring clothes, perhaps grey trousers and you sew a purple patch on them, that patch is much more colourful and interesting. In sports, a purple patch is a run of success or good luck. If a player is enjoying a really good run of form, they are playing really well and scoring goals, you could say that they have hit a purple patch.

This next phrase, a consolation goal, is something that has come up before in these podcasts. A consolation is something that makes you feel better when something bad has happened. In sport, it means a goal or a point that doesn’t affect the final outcome of the match, but makes the team or fans feel a little bit better. If a team is losing 3-0 and they score a goal towards the end of the match, it will not affect the final result. They will still lose, but at least they had a consolation goal to celebrate.

The last word I want to talk about today is the adjective gorgeous. This is another B1 adjective so you probably know it, but I really like the word, to me it is more emphatic than beautiful. So if you say: that was a beautiful goal, it somehow feels much weaker than saying: that was a gorgeous goal. You can use the word to describe very beautiful people. You could say: you look gorgeous in that top. And you can use it to describe anything else that you think is really beautiful.

OK. That’s nine words and phrases from the stories today. The phrases were: a muddled clearance, pundits, the best by a mile, delighted, to be few and far between, to seal the win, a purple patch, a consolation goal and gorgeous. Listen to the stories again to hear the language in context.

Foxes finally find their form

Leicester City completely outplayed their hosts on Saturday at Goodison Park. Everton started strong and should have scored from at least one of a couple of early chances. Unfortunately that strong start didn’t last. Leicester looked by far the better team but it still took until the stroke of halftime for Youri Tielemans to put his side ahead after a muddled clearance rattled to his feet and he struck the ball beautifully from beyond the penalty area.

In the second half, James Maddison stood out. His dominance in the midfield was remarkable, earning strong praise from his manager and pundits who described his performance as the best by a mile. Having earned the assist for the first goal, he went on to set up Harvey Barnes whose emphatic finish swept beyond Pickford.

Final score: Everton 0 - Leicester City 2

Villans triumph under Emery

Aston Villa delighted their fans with the first home win in a Premier League match against Manchester United since 1995. The Red Devils had their moments, times when they looked confident and in control, but these were few and far between.

Villa raced into the lead with early goals from Leon Bailey who found the bottom corner and Lucas Digne who scored from a free kick with a powerful shot into the top right corner.

It looked like United’s fortunes might be changing just before half time when Luke Shaw’s shot took a very lucky deflection off Jacob Ramsey’s back and halved the deficit. However, the 21-year-old Ramsey, who joined Aston Villa when he was just 6, got his name on the right side of the scoreboard when Ollie Watkins took the ball from the halfway line all the way to the penalty area. He held the ball for just long enough for Ramsey to charge up the pitch. The young midfielder powered the ball into the top corner, sealing the win for his club.

Final score: Aston Villa 3 - Manchester United 1

Magpies singing in the rain at St Mary’s

When Newcastle United’s manager Eddie Howe was interviewed after the match, he said that his team was not at their best. However, they were still good enough to pull off a convincing win which puts them third in the league. This has been a remarkable turnaround for the Magpies who were in 19th place this time last year when Eddie Howe took over.

Miguel Almiron, the Paraguayan midfielder opened the scoring after 35 minutes, extending his personal purple patch to 7 goals in 7 games. Chris Wood was brought on as a half-time substitute and doubled Newcastle’s lead when he swivelled on the ball in the area and popped it past Southampton’s keeper and Joe Willock made the game safe when he scored three minutes later.

The rain fell hard, but that didn’t dampen the spirits of the visitors. Romain Perraud did get a consolation goal just before full time only for Bruno Guimaraes to score again with a gorgeous goal.

Final score: Southampton 1 - Newcastle United 4

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. For some of these, I have not used the complete phrase so you may have to use part of the language from the stories.

Number 1: The young midfielder marked his return from injury with a seventh strike of the season and ______ ___ ___.

Number 2: I know it’s very long and quite silly in places, but it’s still my favourite book ___ _ ____.

Number 3: We had a fantastic time. The hotel was lovely and the weather was ________ for the whole week.

Number 4: I was really _________ to see my old friends again

Number 5: Since retiring as a player, he has built a successful career as a football ______.

Number 6: He can still impress on occasions, but such performances have been ___ ___ ___ _______ since his move to the new club.

Number 7: I do feel the pressure, you know, people expect me to score in every game now I've hit a _____ _____.

Number 8: The winger celebrated scoring, even though it was only a ___________ ____.

Number 9: I think that the protestors mean well, but their message is hopelessly _______.

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.

I am going to test you again with another idiom that comes from the world of football and has found its way into general English. Today’s phrase is to **** **** *** ** *** ****.

This means to pay attention to what you are doing at the time. So it kind of means to stay focused. People say you have to **** **** *** ** *** **** if you are doing something tricky where there are dangers or things that could go wrong if you take your *** *** *** ****.

I think that this is quite a common idiom, but it might be quite tricky to guess from my clue.

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: I tried to replace the window myself but completely botched it and had to call in a glazier.

Number 2: The council is having to cut its spending as its deficit has doubled over the last year.

Number 3: The fans gave the team an incredible reception when they returned to their home ground.

Number 4: He didn’t like to talk about it at work, but he was also an accomplished saxophonist and played with a band in his free time.

Number 5: It was humiliating. They absolutely thrashed us.

Number 6: The rise in energy costs is pushing lots of small businesses into the red.

Number 7: I can’t keep on going. I need to take a break. I’m really starting to suffer from fatigue.

Number 8: I do not relish the idea of getting up early to catch the first train to London, but ...

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.