Matchweek 9 - Pegged back

Introduction  

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. That’s right. We’re going to discuss all the latest football action from Matchweek 9 in the Premier League.
 
Rich: And not only that, we’ve also got lots of interesting words and phrases to help you talk about football in English.

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

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

Jack: Let’s start with this week’s headlines!

Headlines

Rich: Hart to take for Burnley.

Jack: Manchester City scored five past their ex-goalkeeper Joe Hart. City stay at the top of the Premier League after goals from Sergio Aguero, Bernardo Silva, Fernandinho, Riyad Mahrez and Leroy Sane. Mahrez’s goal was the best: a curler into the top corner. 

Rich: Chelsea grab a point against United.

Jack: Jose Mourinho was on course for a first win at Stamford Bridge before a very late injury-time equaliser from Ross Barkley. It looked like two goals from Anthony Martial would give United the points but Chelsea never gave up and the equaliser arrived just before the referee blew up for full-time.

Rich: Cardiff get a win at last.

Jack: Cardiff City got their first win of the season at the ninth attempt with a 4-2 win against Fulham. Cardiff fell behind but came back to lead before being pegged back before the interval. However, the Bluebirds were not to be denied and two goals in the second half meant celebrations in the Welsh capital.

Rich: Not a great return to Manchester City for Joe Hart?

Jack: No, not really, but he won’t be forgotten by the City fans and players. Before the match, City announced that they had named one of their training pitches after the two-time Premier League champion.

Rich: That’s a nice touch.

Vocabulary alert!

Rich: In our vocabulary alert, we look at some football English that we used in this week’s headlines.

Jack: The six phrases this week are all phrasal verbs. The phrasal verbs are: give up, fall behind, come back, named after, pegged back, and blow up.

Rich: Let’s start with the easiest one, which I think is to give up. To give up means to surrender or to stop trying. In a football match, it would mean to stop trying to win; maybe because you think it’s impossible to win. Chelsea never gave up and got a late equaliser.

Jack: Listen to this sentence: Cardiff fell behind but came back to lead before being pegged back before the interval. 

Rich: There are three phrasal verbs there; fall behind, come back and peg back.

Jack: Think of the Cardiff - Fulham match and try to work out what happened. Cardiff fell behind. This means that Fulham scored. Cardiff came back. In this case, Cardiff scored twice - they went ahead. It’s now 2-1 to Cardiff. Cardiff were pegged back. Fulham have scored. At half-time, the score was 2-2.

Rich: See if you can use these three phrasal verbs in the comments section at the bottom of this page.

Jack: A training pitch at Manchester City has been named after Joe Hart.

Rich: To name someone or something after someone or something means to give something or someone the same name as something or someone else.

Jack: That’s a bit confusing. Let’s make it easier. I’m Jack, my dad was called Jack. I was named after my dad.

Rich: I thought your dad was called John? 

Jack: It’s just to help people understand, RIch.

Rich: The final phrasal verb is to blow up. It’s important to remember that phrasal verbs can have different meanings. Blow up often means to explode but in the sentence ‘the referee blew up for full time’, the referee didn’t explode.

Jack: No to blow up here means the referee blew his whistle to finish the match.

Rich: See if you can use any of this vocabulary in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

Jack: The phrasal verbs again: give up, fall behind, come back, named after, pegged back, and blow up.

Football Awards

Rich: Right, every week, we give out three matchweek awards. 

Jack: The awards are Player of the Week, Team of the Week and Goal of the Week.

Rich: In the comments section, you need to tell us if you agree with our choices.

Jack: We had lots of comments about the last matchweek and lots of you using the new vocabulary, too.

Rich: Let’s start with this week’s Player of the Week. 

Jack: Manchester United’s Anthony Martial did well and so did Manchester City’s Riyad Mahrez. Watford’s Etienne Capoue had a fine match but this week we’re going to give the award to a goalkeeper.

Rich: our Player of the Week is Tottenham’s Hugo Lloris. Back in the team and the World Cup winner made some sensational saves in Tottenham’s win against West Ham. If it wasn’t for the French goalkeeper, Spurs would surely have lost.

Jack: Now, Team of the Week. Good wins for Liverpool, Everton, Watford, Tottenham, Brighton and a big win for City but our Team of the Week is Cardiff City.

Rich: Yep, a first win for Cardiff and four goals, too. Well done to the Bluebirds.

Jack: Finally our Goal of the Week. There were some great goals this weekend. Riyad Mahrez’s curler for CIty and Bernardo Silva’s was pretty good in the same match.

Rich: But our Goal of the Week is Etienne Capoue’s screamer for Watford against Wolves. Did you see it?

Matchweek Prediction 

Jack: Every week, Rich is going to predict the result of one Premier League match and we want you to make your prediction, too.

Rich: Lots of you made predictions last week for the Chelsea - Manchester Utd match. A few of you predicted a draw including Jack but no one predicted a two all draw.

Jack: I’m catching you up in our Prediction League, Rich? Which match are you going to try to predict this week?

Rich: It’s a big Monday night match and it’s Tottenham against Manchester City. It’s first against fourth and Spurs could actually overtake City if they win this one. I also think that Tottenham have to win if they want to consider themselves as genuine challengers for the Premier League title. For that reason, I think it will be a really exciting high-tempo game and I think Spurs might just come out on top which would really mean this season’s Premier League is wide open. Two goals from Harry Kane and one from Sergio Aguero in a 2-1 Tottenham win.

Jack: I think City are just too good at the moment. I think City will win 3-1.

Rich: We will see. Make your predictions on the page below. You get one point if you predict the right result and three points if you predict the right score.

Jack: Right, that’s all we have time for. I hope you have enjoyed this football round-up. Join the discussion at the bottom of the page. 

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football.