This Week: Keeping their heads

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 britishcouncil.org/premierskillsenglish 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.

The words and phrases we are looking at this week are: strategy, to pay off, to rejuvenate, to have high hopes for something, to live up to something, resilience and to keep your head.

Listen out for these phrases in the headlines and stories.

After each story there will be a short language focus. After the stories, there will be a language challenge for you to complete and then at the end of the podcast there will be a new football phrase.

But before that, 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’s football phrase was *** ***** ** ****. We use this phrase to say that it’s not possible to predict the result of a match or a competition or even an election. Earlier in the season, I thought Manchester City were going to be well ahead by now, but with Liverpool hot on their heels I’d say that league is *** ***** ** ****.

It was a hard one last week and only two people got the right answer so congratulations to Mobeckham from Turkey and Taha Gashout from Libya. You worked out that the phrase I was looking for was too close to call.

Before we get to this week’s football stories, here are the answers to the language challenge from last week.

Number 1. The owner relinquished control of the club and handed everything over to the board of directors.

Number 2. I saw Mohamed Salah in the restaurant. I almost asked to take a selfie with him but I lost my nerve.

Number 3. During the scary parts of the film, he held her hand with a vice-like grip.

Number 4. It was supposed to be a team effort, but you did the lion’s share of the work on your own.

Number 5. The team started off badly and the home crowd was not happy, but the jeers turned to cheers when they got their first goal.

Number 6. After the scandal, I didn’t think we’d see her again, but on Monday, she strolled into the classroom as cool as a cucumber, as if nothing had happened.

Number 7. My five-a-side team is on the way to our best ever league finish.

OK, let’s get on with this week’s three football stories!

Arteta’s Arsenal excites at the Emirates

Mikel Arteta’s team is the youngest in the Premier League and the strategy of pushing young players is starting to pay off. When the gunners’ biggest guns were fired (please excuse the pun), they weren’t really fired, but when they left, Arteta’s youthful side looked, well, too young and inexperienced. But now, that core of hungry young players are coming together and the squad looks rejuvenated and energised. None more so than Bukayo Saka whose blocked shot in the third minute fell to Nuno Tavares, who fired in his first goal for the club. Saka won and converted a penalty in the 32nd minute.

Manchester United were not at their best, but that didn’t stop Cristiano Ronaldo from scoring his 100th goal in the Premier League. After 55 minutes, they had a chance to go level but Bruno Fernandes’ penalty kick hit the outside of the post.

Granit Xhaka scored again for the Gunners in the 70th minute with a superb 25 yard drive.

Final score: Arsenal 3 - Manchester United 1

The words and phrase I want to talk about from this story are strategy, to pay off and to rejuvenate.

The first word is strategy. A strategy is a plan to do something. I like to think of strategies as how you do something. So you could contrast strategies with tactics, although often, the words will be interchangeable. The way I see it, a strategy might be to keep possession or to put pressure on the opposition defenders and tactics would be what a team actually does. So playing lots of short passes to keep possession or long balls to stress a team’s defence. The strategy is the way an objective can be achieved and tactics are what a team actually does. Though, as I say, these phrases are often used interchangeably. Outside of football, the meaning is the same. So a business will need a strategy to be successful and governments need strategies to tackle social problems.

The next phrase was to pay off. You can say that a strategy pays off if it is successful. So if you do something and it is successful, then you can say that it pays off. You could imagine a company that invests money to open a new office in a new city. If the new office is successful then it will pay off, but if it fails then it won’t pay off. It’s often used when an investment is difficult. You might hear someone say: I wanted to lose weight so I gave up all fast food and fizzy drinks. I really missed pizza and chips, but I lost 10kg so it paid off in the end.

The last word from this story is to rejuvenate. The root of this word is the same as in the word juvenile which means young or youthful. So to rejuvenate something means to make it young again. In normal use, it can be used to say that something made someone look or feel young again. So you could say that you felt rejuvenated after a relaxing holiday. But it can also be used to say that an organisation or a team is made more effective by introducing new young ideas or methods. So when I said that the Arsenal squad looks rejuvenated, it could mean that the team looks younger and also that the team is more effective because there are new people.

Let’s move on to the next story.

Joelinton’s finally finding his form

When Joelinton was signed to Newcastle United three years ago, he was expensive. The Toon Army had high hopes for their new Brazilian. Unfortunately, Joelinton was not able to deliver the performances that the fans had expected. He had failed to live up to their hopes and their expectations. However, by the end of the match at Carrow Road at the weekend, the fans were singing: “He’s Brazilian, he only cost £40 million … and we think he’s effing brilliant”. Joelinton had scored two of the three goals Newcastle had put past Norwich and had a renewed spring in his step. Bruno Guimarães scored the third and Newcastle earned another three points.

After the match, Newcastle manager Eddie Howe called Joelinton and Guimarães “a joy to work with”.

Final score: Norwich City 0 - Newcastle United 3

The phrases I want to talk about from this story are to have high hopes for something and to live up to something.

If you have high hopes that something will happen, you are very confident that it will happen. You can have high hopes that something will happen or more generally high hopes for something or someone which means you are confident that they will be successful or that the situation will be positive. When Joelinton arrived at Newcastle, the fans were confident and excited about how he would perform for Newcastle. The fans had high hopes for him.

However, he did not live up to those hopes right away. To live up to something means to be as good, when you experience something as you thought it was going to be. So if someone says that a restaurant is really good and you go there, you will expect the food at the restaurant to be good. Now, when you eat there, if the food is good, you could say that the restaurant lived up to your expectations. If the food is not good and you were disappointed, you could say that the restaurant didn’t live up to your expectations. We can use the phrase to live up to with expectations and with hopes. It’s often used in a negative way with the word hype which means very public, well known praise and positive publicity. When a new club opens in London, there are posters and flyers and loads of social media posts so lots of people talk about the place. This is hype. If you go to the new club and you are not impressed, you could say that the club didn’t live up to the hype.

Let’s move on to the final story.

Chelsea show resilience at the Hive

In the women’s super league, Chelsea are leading Arsenal by a point so when they travelled to the Hive to face Tottenham Hotspur Women, they knew they would have to deal with extra pressure. To make matters worse, after 15 minutes, Spurs English defender Molly Bartrip fired a corner deep into the box where it ricocheted off Chelsea midfielder Sophie Ingle and into the net for an own goal. Chelsea got the equaliser soon after when slipped past Ash Neville before lifting the ball over the keeper from a tight angle and into the net. Things seemed to be back on track for the Blues until Spurs forward Rachel Williams broke through and past the Chelsea keeper only for Berger to wipe her out. The referee had no choice but to reach for the red and the visitors were down to 10.

After the break, Chelsea kept their heads and never looked like cracking under the pressure. Two more goals secured the points and their place in the league.

Final score: Tottenham Hotspur Women 1 - Chelsea Women 3

The words and phrases I want to talk about from this story are resilience and to keep your head.

Resilience is a noun. It means the ability to be successful after something bad has happened. The adjective is resilient and it’s similar to strong or tough. So if something difficult happens to you, perhaps you lose your job or your car is stolen but you don’t let it get you down, you move on and find a way to be happy and successful again, despite the difficulties, you will be resilient, you will demonstrate resilience. So when Chelsea went to the Hive, they were under pressure because of their league position and then they had an own goal and then their keeper was sent off. But after all these difficulties, they kept going and showed that they could succeed, they showed resilience.

The last phrase I want to look at is to keep your head. This means to stay calm and you can also lose your head if you panic or get completely stressed out in a difficult situation. There is a very famous poem by the writer Rudyard Kipling which starts with the lines:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

The poem is a series of instructions about how to be a responsible adult. At the end of the poem, it turns out that it’s a message to the poet’s son, and is about being a man, but that reflects the time the poem was written and it’s really about being a decent person.

OK. That’s 7 words and phrases today. The words and phrases from the stories were: strategy, to pay off, to rejuvenate, to have high hopes for something, to live up to something, resilience and to keep your head.

Listen to the headlines one more time to hear these words and phrases in context.

Arteta’s Arsenal excites at the Emirates

Mikel Arteta’s team is the youngest in the Premier League and the strategy of pushing young players is starting to pay off. When the gunners’ biggest guns were fired (please excuse the pun), they weren’t really fired, but when they left, Arteta’s youthful side looked, well, too young and inexperienced. But now, that core of hungry young players are coming together and the squad looks rejuvenated and energised. None more so than Bukayo Saka whose blocked shot in the third minute fell to Nuno Tavares, who fired in his first goal for the club. Saka won and converted a penalty in the 32nd minute.

Manchester United were not at their best, but that didn’t stop Cristiano Ronaldo from scoring his 100th goal in the Premier League. After 55 minutes, they had a chance to go level but Bruno Fernandes’ penalty kick hit the outside of the post.

Granit Xhaka scored again for the Gunners in the 70th minute with a superb 25 yard drive.

Final score: Arsenal 3 - Manchester United 1

Joelinton’s finally finding his form

When Joelinton was signed to Newcastle United three years ago, he was expensive. The Toon Army had high hopes for their new Brazilian. Unfortunately, Joelinton was not able to deliver the performances that the fans had expected. He had failed to live up to their hopes and their expectations. However, by the end of the match at Carrow Road at the weekend, the fans were singing: “He’s Brazilian, he only cost £40 million … and we think he’s effing brilliant”. Joelinton had scored two of the three goals Newcastle had put past Norwich and had a renewed spring in his step. Bruno Guimarães scored the third and Newcastle earned another three points.

After the match, Newcastle manager Eddie Howe called Joelinton and Guimarães “a joy to work with”.

Final score: Norwich City 0 - Newcastle United 3

Chelsea show resilience at the Hive

In the women’s super league, Chelsea are leading Arsenal by a point so when they travelled to the Hive to face Tottenham Hotspur Women, they knew they would have to deal with extra pressure. To make matters worse, after 15 minutes, Spurs English defender Molly Bartrip fired a corner deep into the box where it ricocheted off Chelsea midfielder Sophie Ingle and into the net for an own goal. Chelsea got the equaliser soon after when Guro Reitan slipped past Ash Neville before lifting the ball over the keeper from a tight angle and into the net. Things seemed to be back on track for the Blues until Spurs forward Rachel Williams broke through and past the Chelsea keeper only for Berger to wipe her out. The referee had no choice but to reach for the red and the visitors were down to 10.

After the break, Chelsea kept their heads and never looked like cracking under the pressure. Two more goals secured the points and their place in the league.

Final score: Tottenham Hotspur Women 1 - Chelsea Women 3

Language Challenge

Right, now it’s time for you to think about the language again.

Here are seven sentences with gaps in them and you have to complete the gaps with the words and phrases from this podcast.

Number 1. After a string of wins, the fans had ________ of promotion to the Premier League.

Number 2. She felt _________ after two weeks of relaxation on a beach in Spain.

Number 3. You need a different ________ when you are playing against Liverpool.

Number 4. If you can _________ when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you ...

Number 5. Did your holiday _______ your expectations?

Number 6. The way he coped with the problems and overcame his fears showed _______.

Number 7. When she quit her job and went into business on her own, she was taking a risk, but it _______ in the end.

Leave your answers in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website.

Football phrase

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

I’ve selected an easy word this week from the Premier Vocabulary section.

The word is ***. The word used to mean a kind of box that a soldier would use to carry all their equipment, but now means the set of clothes and equipment that someone uses for a special purpose. In football, it means the clothes that footballers wear. The person who looks after a team’s playing clothes and boots and shin pads is traditionally known as the *** man.

I think that’s an easy one this week so I hope to see lots of answers.

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 all of you stay fit and healthy and safe.

Bye for now and enjoy your football.