This Week: The Chasing Pack

This Week: The Chasing Pack

Laura: Hello my name’s Laura 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.

Rich: My name’s Rich. If you want to listen and read at the same time we have a transcript of this podcast on the Premier Skills English website.

Laura: This week we focus on this season’s surprise teams: Leicester and Southampton, the world’s best female footballer and surprise draws for the Premier League’s top two.

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. 

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.

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

Rich: The words and phrases we are looking at this week are: a brilliant first-half display, to sweep aside, to close the gap, a last-gasp winner, the chasing pack and to peg back.

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: Saints and Foxes in Champions League places.

Laura: Leicester City are up to third place and Southampton up to fourth after 3-0 wins at the weekend. Leicester produced a brilliant first-half display - scoring three times against Brighton. Southampton swept aside bottom club Sheffield United with ease - the Saints have only lost one of their last ten matches.

Rich: Southampton and Leicester are looking like really good teams this season. Can they challenge for the title?

Jack: I think they can - especially Leicester. They still have lots of players to come back from injury so they are in a really good position.

Laura: Let’s look at some language. I said that Leicester produced a brilliant first-half display. We often use the word display in football to describe a performance.

Rich: Yes, display can be used as a noun to describe a show or a performance that is designed to entertain people.

Jack: We often go to watch fireworks displays on New Year’s Eve or you might be amazed by a display of acrobatics at the circus, for example.

Laura: And it’s common to use display to talk about football matches. I said Leicester produced a brilliant first-half display. 

Rich: Yes, they were very good in the first half. Brighton couldn’t get near them.

Jack: The next bit of language is a phrasal verb and it’s to sweep aside.

Laura: Generally this phrasal verb is used to say that someone doesn’t consider someone else’s opinion to be important. Listen to this example:

Rich: I told him that we should buy a ticket in advance but he said we could buy them at the stadium. No problem he said.

Jack: In this example, Rich’s suggestion was swept aside - it was ignored as it wasn’t seen as important or necessary to consider.

Laura: In football to sweep someone aside is used differently. It’s usually used to suggest that one side was much better than their opponent. Southampton swept Sheffield United aside - they beat them easily.

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

Headline 2

Laura: Harder wins award as Chelsea chase United at the top.

Rich: Chelsea’s Pernille Harder was named the world’s best women’s footballer for a second time in three years but it was last year’s winner and teammate Sam Kerr that scored the winning goal on the pitch for the Blues. Chelsea beat Brighton 1-0. Manchester United stay top after a 2-1 win at Reading and Manchester City closed the gap on the top three with a last-gasp winner against Arsenal.

Jack: Great recognition for Pernille Harder at Chelsea and the women’s super league in general.

Laura: Yes, the top three in the list were all from the women’s super league. The top 100 list is judged by 88 coaches, players and journalists from the world of football.

Rich: Let’s look at some language. We said that Manchester City closed the gap on the top three. To close the gap is the phrase we’re looking at here. This is very common in football.

Jack: When we speak about the gap in football we’re usually speaking about the gap or the difference in points between one team and another in the table.

Laura: Manchester City closed the gap on Arsenal by beating them last weekend. The gap was four points and now it’s just one.

Rich: The other phrase I want to look at is a last-gasp winner. This is when a winning goal is scored in the last moments of a game.

Jack: A gasp is a short,  sharp intake of breath. Your last gasp would be your last breath in life. Not very cheerful.

Laura: A last-gasp winner is much more cheerful because it means a goal has been scored at the last possible moment.

Rich: We might see it used outside of football, too. A last-gasp attempt is a common collocation. We might hear politicians speak about last-gasp attempts when referring to last-minute talks to make agreements before deadlines. 

Jack: Let’s move on to our final headline.

Headline 3

Rich: Top two held up in London. 

Jack: Tottenham and Liverpool were surprisingly held to one all draws at the weekend which allowed the chasing pack to close the gap on the top two. Spurs were held at Crystal Palace. Harry Kane and Son Heung-Min combined once again but they were pegged back by a late Palace equaliser. Fulham took a deserved lead against Liverpool who needed a late Mohamed Salah penalty to earn a point.

Laura: A couple of surprising results there, I actually thought Fulham deserved to win. They were unlucky.

Rich: There are no easy matches in the Premier League. 

Jack: I spoke about the chasing pack in the headline. This phrase comes from the animal world.

Laura: A pack is a group of animals which hunt together. You might get a pack of dogs or a pack of wolves.

Rich: To chase means to follow something in order to catch it. Animals chase other animals - predators chase their prey.

Jack: They often chase in packs. When it comes to football - the chasing pack are the teams behind the leaders. The leaders are the prey and the chasing pack are the predators.

Laura: The chasing pack are Leicester, Southampton, Chelsea, Manchester City and United. They are all trying to catch Liverpool and Tottenham.

Rich: Our last phrase this week is another phrasal verb and it’s to peg back. Jack said that Tottenham were pegged back by Crystal Palace.

Jack: To peg back means to stop a team from winning or increasing a lead. One team takes the lead and they get pegged back when the other team scores.

Laura: It’s not exactly the same as equalising though as a team can also be pegged back when they are winning 2-0 to make the score 2-1. It can mean to equalise or reduce the deficit.

Rich: OK. We’ve looked at three stories and six bits of vocabulary in our headlines. The words and phrases we’ve looked at are: a brilliant first-half display, to sweep aside, to close the gap, a last-gasp winner, the chasing pack and to peg back.

Jack: Don’t forget to look at the website for the transcript if you want to check your understanding of this vocabulary.

Prediction

Laura: It’s time for this week’s Premier League prediction. Last week none of us did very well with our prediction for the Manchester Derby.

Rich: It finished nil-nil and nothing really happened. That’s why we haven’t mentioned it. It was rather dull and uneventful.

Jack: Here’s hoping the big match in Matchweek 13 will be more interesting. It’s your turn with the prediction, Laura.

Laura: There are actually two rounds of fixtures this week matchweek 13 in midweek and matchweek 14 at the weekend. There is no doubt that the biggest match of the week is at Anfield where Liverpool face Tottenham. Both teams will be disappointed with draws last weekend but I think Liverpool will be more disappointed because the performance wasn’t great either. Spurs don’t have a great record at Anfield but I have a suspicion that they will get something out of this game. Final score: Liverpool 1-2 Tottenham.

Rich: No, no. The Champions will play like champions in this one. 2-0 to Liverpool.

Jack: You’re going to have to be quick with your predictions because this match is on Wednesday. We want you to make your predictions for this match and all the Matchweek 13 & 14 fixtures 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.

Rich: Earlier we looked at the phrasal verb to peg back. We’re going to give you three more sentences which include phrasal verbs with back.

Jack: We want you to write the missing words in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website.

Laura: Don’t go! I didn’t mean it. _______ back!

Rich: Fire!  _______ back! Let me get the fire extinguisher.

Jack: If he’d ______ the ball back it would have been an easy finish for the striker.

Laura: We want you to write the answers 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.

Jack: 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.

Laura: Bye for now and enjoy your football.