This Week: Back down to earth

This Week: Back down to earth

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: In Matchweek 6, Everton and Aston Villa’s unbeaten starts to the season came to an end, and there was a fantastic goal from West Ham’s Michail Antonio and a wonderful performance from Crystal Palace’s Wilfried Zaha.

Jack: 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. 

Laura: 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.

Rich: 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.

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

Laura: The words and phrases we are looking at this week are: to be brought back down to earth, in tatters, a spectacular acrobatic overhead volley, to pile on the pressure, to be rooted to the bottom and a reverse pass.

Rich: 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: Everton and Villa brought back down to earth.

Rich: Everton and Aston VIlla’s unbeaten starts to the season came to an end in Matchweek six with defeats against Southampton and Leeds United. Everton lost 2-0 to the Saints with goals from James Ward-Prowse and Che Adams. Villa’s 100% record was left in tatters after a Patrick Bamford hat-trick gave Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds United all three points.

Laura: Everton are still top of the Premier League - on goal difference.

Rich: Liverpool are just behind them after a come from behind 2-1 win against Sheffield United - it was a tough match though.

Jack: All good things have to come to an end I suppose and Everton and Villa will be very happy with their starts to the season.

Laura: Yes, the weekend results probably brought them back down to earth and back down to earth is the first bit of language we’re going to look at this week.

Rich: To come back down to earth means to start behaving in a normal way again after being very excited about something - to be brought back to reality.

Jack: Aston Villa and Everton fans and players were probably very excited about winning their first few matches but they have been brought back to reality by those defeats - they were never going ot win every match.

Laura: You can also be brought back to earth with a bump - this means coming back to reality with a shock. 

Rich: Villa fans were brought back to earth with a bump - a 3-0 home defeat is not what they were expecting.

Jack: The next phrase is in tatters.. We said that Villa’s 100% record was in tatters.

Laura: If something is in tatters it means it’s been so badly damaged that it cannot be saved.

Rich: Villa’s 100% record is in tatters - it is torn - broken. They can’t have it back.

Jack: We often talk about a person’s reputation being in tatters. This is especially the case with politicians or famous people.

Laura: A politician’s reputation will be in tatters if they are caught not telling the truth or breaking the law. Let’s move on to our second headline.

Headline 2

Laura: Antonio wonder goal earns point for Hammers.

Jack: Michail Antonio’s spectacular acrobatic overhead volley was enough to earn West Ham a point against Manchester City at the London Stadium. City equalised through Phil Foden in the second half and despite piling on the pressure couldn’t break through a strong West Ham defence.

Rich: A great point for West Ham but City will be very disappointed - City are down in 13th place.

Laura: Let’s talk about that goal from Michail Antonio because it was spectacular.

Jack: Yes, spectacular and acrobatic.

Rich: Overhead volleys are always good.

Laura: And that’s how we described it: a spectacular acrobatic overhead volley.

Jack: So, we’re using three adjectives here to describe a noun - a volley - which is a shot that is hit before the ball touches the ground.

Rich: Let’s think about adjective order. We say spectacular first because that is our opinion. When we have more than one adjective opinion adjectives usually go first.

Laura: We then use acrobatic. This could also be opinion but also describes the physical quality so goes after opinion - a spectacular, overhead volley not an overhead spectacular volley.

Jack: We then have overhead - an overhead volley. This describes the type of volley so goes closer to the noun and after the other two types of adjective that are used for opinion and physical quality.

Rich: If you want to learn more about adjective order Google ‘learn English vocabulary describing people adjective order’ and you will find more detailed information about this.

Laura: Our second phrase we want to take from the West Hm - Manchester City match is to pile on the pressure.

Jack: TO pile o is an informal phrasal verb that means to increase by a large amount.

Rich: We might say that a large company is piling on the pressure to make a smaller company agree to a business deal.

Laura: Or a country is piling on the pressure to force other countries to come to the negotiating table.

Jack: In football we’re talking about one team having all of the ball and putting pressure on the other tam’s goal. Manchester City were piling on the pressure in the second half but West Ham managed to get a draw.

Rich: They did very well. Let’s look at our third and final headline.

Headline 3

Rich: Zaha keeps Fulham rooted to the bottom.

Laura: A wonderful performance from Crystal Palace’s Wilfried Zaha gave Palace all three points and kept Fulham rooted to the bottom of the Premier League table without a win after six matches. Zaha played a superb reverse pass to set up Jairo Riedewald for the first and scored the second himself as Place moved up to fifth.

Jack: A great win for Palace but Fulham can’t buy a win at the moment. They were piling on the pressure in the second half, too.

Rich: I like this phrase can’t buy a win - I hear it a lot.

Jack: Yes, it’s a phrase that emphasises that whatever you do or however you play you just can’t win or succeed.

Laura: There were a couple of other phrases in the headline we want to take a look at. The first is to be rooted to the bottom of the table.

Rich: Laura said Fulham are rooted to the bottom of the table. This means they are last and have been there for a long time. Fulham have been there all season.

Jack: It is used to emphasise the length of time they are at the bottom because roots are what trees have under the ground. When something is rooted it will be there for a long time.

Laura: There is still time for Fulham though. The season is only six matches old.

Rich: Our final phrase this week is a reverse pass. We said that Wilfried Zaha played a reverse pass to set up the opening goal.

Jack: A reverse pass is when a player runs in the opposite direction to where they pass the ball. It often tricks defenders, especially if they are watching the player rather than the ball.

Laura: OK. We’ve looked at three stories and six bits of vocabulary in our headlines. The words and phrases we’ve looked at are: to be brought back down to earth, in tatters, a spectacular acrobatic overhead volley, to pile on the pressure, to be rooted to the bottom and a reverse pass.

Prediction

Rich: It’s time for this week’s Premier League prediction. Last time Laura predicted a Manchester United win in a high-scoring match against Chelsea. How did it finish?

Laura: A goalless draw. I think we have a prediction curse.

Jack: Or maybe we’re just not that good at it. Let’s see if our prediction curse continues on Halloween weekend. Rich - which match are you going to look at.

Rich: Matchweek seven sees Manchester United take on Arsenal. Neither team scored a goal last weekend. United against Chelsea finished nil-nil and Arsenal lost1-0 to Leicester so at least one team should bounce back this weekend. I actually think it will be Arsenal. Arsenal seem to have a stronger defence and midfield this season and Aubameyang is due a goal. United are still having problems so I’m going for an Arsenal win in this mid-table clash. Final score: Manchester United 1-2 Arsenal.

Laura: Mid-table clash? Some fans won’t like that.

Jack: It is at the moment but it’s early days in the season.

Rich: We want all of you to make your predictions for Matchweek 7 on the Premier Skills English website.

Language Challenge

Laura: To finish up the show we’ve got a quick language challenge connected to this week’s vocabulary.

Jack: Earlier we looked at the phrase a spectacular acrobatic overhead volley.  

Rich: We used three adjectives: spectacular, acrobatic and overhead to describe the noun: volley.

Laura: We are going to give you three different nouns to describe and we want you to use three adjectives to complete the sentence.

Jack: Pele was ______________ goalscorer.

Rich: Manchester United played in a _____________ kit against Paris St.Germain last week.

Laura: Aston Villa’s 7-2 win against Liverpool was __________ match.

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

Rich: 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.

Laura: 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.