This Week: The writing is on the wall

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 premierskillsenglish.britishcouncil.org 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.

This week, I’m talking about about Liverpool and Everton in the Merseyside derby and a record result at the Emirates for Arsenal and Chelsea.

The words and phrases I am going to talk about today are:

• Contenders
• To muster
• Intent and intensity
• The writing’s on the wall
• To choke
• Scrappy
• Statuesque

Listen out for this vocabulary in this week’s story.

But before I get to the story, 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.

Last week, the phrase was ***** ** ***. This phrase is used to talk about the tactics and strategies that a manager likes and the way that they want their team to play. This phrase includes things like the vision that the manager has, the instructions and how they organise the team, the formation and how the players move on the pitch and how direct they are; whether they prefer to keep possession and engineer breaks or if they are more aggressive and prefer to charge at their opponents. All of these ideas describe the ***** ** **** that a manager directs their players to carry out on the pitch.

Congratulations to Alex from Ukraine (third time’s a charm)! Congratulations to AndreTorre 102 from Brazil, Gapa from Korea, the honour is mine Gapa. Congratulations to Jacob Burns from Poland, Lukáš from Czechia, Hasan from Turkey, Wojciech. M from Poland, Leofabiano from Brazil and Ryohei from Japan.

You all worked out that the phrase I was looking for was style of play.

There were a couple of questions about the difference between the phrases to have the upper hand and to have the edge over. And yes, they are very similar and in lots of cases could be used interchangeably. I think that the main difference is ... to have the upper hand means to be in a better position. So a team might have the upper hand because they have the home advantage and better players or a politician might have the upper hand in an election because they have more supporters. To have the edge over someone means to have a slight advantage. It’s like only just having the upper hand. So if two boxers are both strong and both look fit and ready, you might say that they are evenly matched but you think one has the edge because they are slightly taller or have a slightly longer reach. It means they have a slight advantage. In the language challenge, both phrases could be used in numbers four and five. When I found the examples, I thought the clue was that in number five, it said both operating systems performed well so the difference was just the edge, but now I’m reading your answers, both phrases work well in four and five.

OK - there will be a new language challenge and a new football phrase for you at the end of the podcast, but now it’s time for the first story.

Liverpool misery in the Merseyside derby

Liverpool took the short trip across the city to Goodison park to face their oldest rivals Everton in the Merseyside derby. Jurgen Klopp’s team were contenders for the title but couldn’t afford to drop points as the gap between Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City was so narrow, even a draw might have put them out of the race. Everton were in their own battle at the bottom of the table and needed as many points as they could muster from these final games of the season if they wanted to avoid relegation. And this was a derby match so no matter what the result meant for the league, it was always going to be competitive.

Everton’s home crowd roared in support of the Toffees and attacked with confidence whenever they got the ball. Everton started the match at full speed and attacked with such intent and intensity, that Liverpool looked shaken. Jarrad Branthwaite raised the pressure and noise level in the stadium when he put the home side ahead after 15 minutes.

Liverpool seemed to settle down not long after and it looked like they were going to take control, with long spells of possession and repeated attempts to break through Everton’s defence. On several occasions they managed to break through only to either miss or fire the ball straight at Jordan Pickford in goal.

In the second half, Everton fired in from the corner. Liverpool somehow left Dominic Calvert-Lewin unmarked at the back. Calvert-Lewin had been having a great game so when he made a mighty leap to head home, putting Everton 2 goals up, the writing was on the wall for Liverpool and the home crowd erupted with joy.

Final score: Everton 2 - 0 Liverpool

The phrases from the story that I want to talk about are:

• Contenders
• To muster
• Intent and intensity
• The writing’s on the wall

Contenders
The noun contender means someone who is in a competition and has a chance of winning. So at the beginning of the season, you might say that there are 20 contenders for the league title. However at the end of the season or near the end of the season, the number of teams that still have a chance to win is much lower. Before the Merseyside derby, Liverpool were one of three contenders for the title this season. Now, in order for Liverpool to win, Manchester City and Arsenal both have to lose matches and City are still looking very strong.

To muster
This verb means to produce or gather something together. Most commonly, we talk about mustering emotions like courage or enthusiasm. If there is something that you are worried about, you might need to make an effort to muster the courage to do it. In the story, I said that Everton needed all the points they could muster, meaning all the points they could get. I used the word muster, because it implies effort. If you have to muster something , you have to work to produce it. Everton will have to work hard to get enough points to survive in the Premier League so it didn’t feel right to just say they need all the points they can get. I could have said all the points they can manage or all the points they can gather or all the points they can muster.

Intent and intensity
This is a bit of a cliche in football English. You hear commentators and pundits talking about a team’s intent and intensity when they play with an aggressive style of play. The noun intent is quite interesting. It’s almost the same as intention, which just means something that someone wants to do. However, if you have an intention, it just means a general desire. An intent means a desire and a plan so it’s used in legal English to talk about what criminals want to do. In football English, you often hear that a team signalled their intent at the beginning of a match if they played positive attacking football. I think that teams always want to win, all teams have the same intention, but when a team looks like they are in control and playing according to their game plan, you can see their intent as well as their intention.

The noun intensity means the quality of having a strong or powerful effect. The adjective form, intense, is often used to talk about very strong flavoured food or drinks. I like black coffee because it has a very intense flavour. The noun form is commonly used to describe a style of attacking where an attacking team is relentless and never slows down or relaxes at all. Where the style of attacking has a strong effect. I’m not sure teams can keep attacking with high intensity for a whole match as that would be too exhausting, but some teams manage to keep up the intensity for a long time.

The writing was on the wall
This has come up before, but a long time ago. This idiom means that there are clear signs that something is going wrong or going to fail. So I think that the writing is on the wall for Sheffield United. They played a spirited match against Manchester United last week, but they will have to win all four of their remaining matches and they will need Nottingham Forest to lose all four of their remaining matches. So although there is still a chance of them surviving, there are clear signs so you could say the writing is on the wall for the Blades.

Let’s move on to the next story.

Arsenal secure a record win against Chelsea

Arsenal took control from kick off, making it clear that they were not going to choke again at the end of the season. Trossard was the first on the scoresheet firing home his 4th goal in his last six games with a crisp finish after four minutes.

Not long after, Chelsea missed a good opportunity after Madueke (ma doo ay kay) played a clever cross that zipped through the Arsenal box, past Arsenal defenders and Nicholas Jackson attacking for Chelsea. It was picked up by Cucurella (Coo ke raya) who hesitated just for a second which gave Arsenal’s defenders time to adjust and his shot was blocked.

In the second half, Arsenal extended their lead with a slightly scrappy goal from Ben White and then again with an amazing goal from Kai Havertz who ran onto a very clever long ball and held off Cucurella before firing home.

For the rest of the match, Chelsea looked flat and like their spirit had been broken. One commentator described the two rows of blue shirts as statuesque which I think was an interesting choice. After an extended spell of Arsenal possession, the ball was slotted through for Havertz who scored again, driving the ball just inside the post.

To add insult to injury, White scored again, giving Arsenal their biggest ever win over Chelsea. White admitted afterwards that it was a lucky cross that he slightly miss-hit, but that didn't change the result.

Final score: Arsenal 5 - 0 Chelsea

The words from the story that I want to talk about are:

• To choke
• Scrappy
• Statuesque

To choke
The literal meaning of the verb to choke is to stop breathing because something is blocking your throat. When my kids were small, I used to cut up every grape and cherry tomato because I was worried about my kids choking. However, there is another meaning that is common in sports and performing and that means to fail to do something because you lose your nerve. So last year, Arsenal were leading the league and then, they seemed to lose their nerve and they suddenly played badly and Manchester City overtook them. This year, football pundits have been talking about whether Arsenal will stay cool and keep playing well or if they will choke again.

Scrappy
The adjective scrappy usually means badly organised or put together, often because the materials involved are old or of poor quality. The scraps of material, often fabric or paper, are the bits left over after the most important pieces have been cut. If you have to use the scraps, then whatever you produce will be scrappy and not well put together. In football, some goals are well crafted; they start in the attackers own half and the ball is passed several times in the midfield before being crossed for a striker to shoot and other goals come from less well practised routines; say a clearance rebounds off the back of a defender and then is knocked out of control around the area before being scrambled over the line. Both goals are worth the same on the scoresheet, only one is well crafted and the other is scrappy.

Statuesque
This was a strange choice of adjective, but I quite like it. It just means like a statue so normally, it’s used in a positive way to describe someone who has an impressive body, usually someone who is tall and shapely, like a statue. But it can also mean very dignified, perhaps like the statue of a roman emperor or very tall or as was the case in the commentary, very still. You see, there were two columns of blue players and they looked a bit like they were in the formation you see at the beginning of the match. They were not moving enough and so Arsenal were able to get past them. In the commentary the description of the blue shirts as statuesque was not positive.

Today, I’ve spoken about 8 useful words and phrases.

The words and phrases were:

• Contenders
• To muster
• Intent and intensity
• The writing’s on the wall
• To choke
• Scrappy
• Statuesque

Listen to the stories one more time to hear this language in context.

Language challenge

Right, now it’s time for you to think about this language again. I have used AI to come up with examples of today’s words and phrases. I have removed the vocabulary from the stories so I want you to fill in the gaps with the correct forms of the language from the podcast.

Number 1. Following a string of losses, the coach saw ______________ and resigned before the season ended.
Number 2. His __________ posture made him stand out in the crowd, exuding confidence.
Number 3. She trained with such ___________ that it inspired others to push their limits too.
Number 4. During the final match, the pressure was so intense that he _______ and missed the last shot.
Number 5. She quickly emerged as a strong _________ for the championship title with her impressive performance.
Number 6. Despite her fatigue, she _________ enough energy to finish the marathon.
Number 7. With a _________ style of play, the underdog team clawed their way back into the game.
Number 8. Her _________ was clear; she wanted to win the competition at any cost.

Leave your answers to this language challenge in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website.

Football phrase

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

This week, the football phrase is a really easy one. I think that I’ve been too tough on you recently so this week, I’m choosing an easy word. This week, the football phrase is a word that refers to a match between two teams that play in the same city or region. You need to be a little bit careful with the pronunciation of this word as the pronunciation of the vowel sound has changed over the years and now, it looks like it should be pronounced differently.

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, I am going to go through the answers to last week’s language challenge.

Number 1. A strong password is crucial to protect your online accounts from hackers.
Number 2. Many students struggle to cope with the stress of finals week, feeling overwhelmed by the workload.
Nuimber 3. Coordinating the international conference almost single-handedly, she was run ragged by the end of the week.
Number 4. The veteran chess player had the upper hand throughout the game, thanks to her experience and deep understanding of different strategies.
Number 5. Both of the operating systems performed well, but the user-friendly interface gave Apple the edge over other systems, making it more popular among consumers.
Number 6. During the crisis, he showed the characteristic calmness and composure that make him such an excellent manager.

And 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 everyone stays fit and healthy and safe.

Bye for now and enjoy your football.