This Week: Late Drama

This Week: Late Drama

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: Matchweek 5 in the Premier League had plenty of drama and lots of late goals.

Jack: And a goalscoring record was broken in the Women’s Super League.

Laura: 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. 

Jack: We’re going to look at some football English for you to learn and this week we’re going to focus on six phrases. 

Rich: 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.

Laura: 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.

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

Jack: Don’t forget that we also have our weekly Premier Skills English podcast that is released every Friday. Every week we help you with some different vocabulary or an aspect of grammar.

Laura: Our latest podcast is called English at work: Negotiating

Rich: In the podcast, I send my best negotiating team - Rowan and Jack - to make the best advertising deal for my football-themed cafe.

Jack: We look at language we use in negotiations and ten adjectives that can be used to describe negotiating skills - adjectives such as assertive and diplomatic.

Laura: If you want to learn more, you can find the podcast on the Premier Skills English homepage now.

Rich: OK, you’re now going to hear our three headlines. After each headline, we’ll have a little discussion and look at some vocabulary. 

Jack: The words and phrases we are looking at this week are: all square, apiece, top scorer, a demolition, a 100% record and a leveller.

Laura: 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: Merseyside Derby finishes all square as Toffees stick to the top.

Rich: Everton levelled twice against Liverpool to maintain their unbeaten start to the season as the 135th Merseyside Derby finished two apiece. Sadio Mane gave the visitors the perfect start with a goal after just three minutes but Michael Keane equalised for the hosts. Salah put Liverpool back ahead but Dominic Calvert-Lewin struck to keep Everton at the top of the league.

Laura: There was also late drama a red card and a bad injury to tell us about in this one.

Rich: Yes, Liverpool were denied an injury-time winner by the tightest of offside decisions, Richarlison was given a red card for a reckless challenge on Thiago and Virgil van Dijk looks like he will be out for months after a challenge from Jordan Pickford.

Jack: Lots to read about - you might want to check out premierleague.com for more information.

Laura: That’s because we’re going to look at a bit of language. Our first phrase is all square. In the headline, Jack said ‘the Merseyside Derby finishes all square.

Rich: ‘All square’ is a general phrase for a draw. The match finished all-square means the match finished in a draw. It could be 0-0, 1-1 any type of draw.

Jack: It has another meaning connected to money as well. Say for example, you lent me £20 last week.

Rich: £20? Really?

Jack: It’s just an example, let’s say yu lent me £20 last week and now I’m giving it back to you. I might say ‘here’s that £20 I owe you - we’re all square, right?’

Rich: So, all square is used to say we’re level - here with money. I don’t owe you anything and you don’t owe me anything - we’re all square.

Laura: The next phrase is just a word but one we hear quite a bit in football. The word is a piece. Jack said the match finished two apiece.

Jack: It basically means the same as ‘each’. The match finished two apiece. The match finished two each.

Rich: We often hear it about goalscorers. Salah and Mane got two apiece. They got two goals each.

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

Headline 2

Laura: Arsenal stay top as Miedema breaks goal record.

Jack: Arsenal remained top of the Women’s Super League after a 6-1 demolition of Tottenham in the North London Derby. Vivianne Miedema needed one goal to become the first player to reach fifty goals in the competition and she did it in style with a first-half hat-trick. Miedema has been the league’s top scorer for the last two seasons, is the leading scorer this season and now has 52 goals in 50 games.

Laura: Vivianne Miedema is a phenomenal goalscorer. I’ve read that she modelled her game on another ex-Arsenal player and dutch international Robin Van Persie.

Rich: Let’s look at a couple of words from the headline. The first word is demolition. I’ll let Jack say it the example again:

Jack: Arsenal stay top after a 6-1 demolition of Tottenham

Laura: Nice for an Arsenal fan to say that. In football, a demolition is used to describe one team beating another very easily. 

Rich: More generally a demolition is usually used to describe buildings being destroyed.

Jack: We use a noun phrase - Arsenal’s win was described as a 6-1 demolition - a 6-1 demolition of Tottenham.

Laura: The other phrase is top scorer. We use this phrase to describe the player who has scored the most goals. 

Rich: The top scorer in the Women’s Super League is Vivianne Miedema, the Premier League’s top scorers are Son Heung-Min and Dominic Calvert_Lewin.

Jack: You can have all-time top scorers, individual club top scorers or top scorers for individual competitions.

Laura: Let’s move on to our third and final headline.

Headline 3

Rich: Late drama brings shocks and surprises.

Laura: This week’s Premier League action was full of late drama. West Ham scored three times in the last 10 minutes to grab a draw against Spurs, Ross Barkley scored an injury-time winner to maintain Aston Villa’s 100% record, and Southampton and Brighton scored last-minute levellers against Chelsea and Crystal Palace.

Jack: Yes, some very exciting finishes. Teams never give up in the Premier League. Let’s look at a bit of language.

Rich: Aston Villa are the only team in the Premier League with a 100% record. 

Laura: A 100% record means they have won every game they have played. Aston Villa have played four times and won four times - they have won 100% of the time.

Jack: I bet nobody saw that coming at the beginning of the season. I wonder how long they can keep it going.

Rich: The other word is a leveller. West Ham, Southampton and Brighton all got late levellers at the weekend.

Laura: A leveller is another word for equalser. A leveller is a goal that makes the scores level. An equaliser is a goal that makes the scores equal. 

Jack: OK. We’ve looked at three stories and six bits of vocabulary in our headlines. The words and phrases we’ve looked at are: all square, apiece, top scorer, a demolition, a 100% record and a leveller.

Prediction

Rich: It’s time for this week’s Premier League prediction. Last time Jack predicted that Everton would bet Liverpool but it finished all square - two apiece.

Jack: It wasn’t a bad prediction - Everton are doing really well. It’s Laura’s turn this week.

Laura: The match I’m going to focus on for Matchweek 6 is Manchester United against Chelsea. United got a big win last weekend - 4-1 away at Newcastle that will have bright some confidence back into the team. Chelsea meanwhile surrendered a late leveller against Southampton. That one finished three apiece. Both teams seem to have problems at the back but I think United will win this one. Final score: Manchester United 3-2 Chelsea.

Rich: I agree I think United will win this, too but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was another crazy scoreline.

Jack: We want all of you to make your predictions for MAtchweek 6 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.

Laura: Earlier we looked at the phrase all square. Our language challenge this week includes three more phrases that contain the word square.

Rich: Write your answers in the comments section and if your answers are correct you will see that we have replaced your answer with asterisks so other listeners can guess too. Here are the three sentences.

Jack: I don’t know why you are complaining. It was never a penalty. We won the match _____ and square.

Laura: It’s back to square ______ after that defeat. I thought we were getting better but obviously not.

Rich: Playing a midfielder in defence is like putting a square peg in a _______ hole. It’s never going to work.

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

Laura: 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.

Rich: 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.