This Week: To build momentum

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 premierskillsenglish.britishcouncil.org 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.

Today, I’m talking about Arsenal's trip to Newcastle, Nottingham Forest who hosted West Ham United and Aston Villa who took the trip to London to take on Tottenham Hotspur.

The words and phrases I am going to talk about are:

• To build momentum
• An upbeat performance
• A joy to watch
• Inevitable
• Reckless
• Argy-bargy
• To glance off

Listen out for this vocabulary in the story.

But before I get to the story, I want to look at the last football phrase and fiendish football phrase. If you didn’t hear them in the last podcast, here’s one more chance to guess now.

Last time, the football phrase was stretcher. This is like a special bed that two medics can carry an injured player on. The player has to lie on the stretcher and one medic holds the head end and another holds the feet end.

The last fiendish football phrase was outfield players. This phrase refers to the footballers on a team, apart from the goalkeeper. Guardiola told reporters that he only has 13 outfield players that are fit enough to play.

Congratulations to AndreTorre from Brazil, Ahmed Abouzeid from Egypt, Lukáš from Czechia, Hasan from Turkey, Elkhamene from Tanzania, welcome to Premier Skills English Elkhamene, Congratulations to LeoFabioano from Brazil and Denis 2000 from Belarus.
You all managed to work out that the football phrase was stretcher and the fiendish football phrase was outfield players.

There were a few more predictions last week, but it’s really hard for me to get these podcasts out early enough. There’s an international break coming up so that will give everyone a chance to make a prediction! I’ll talk about how well we all did after the stories.

Keep listening till the end of the podcast for three new predictions, a new football phrase and a new fiendish football phrase.

Now it’s time for the first story.

Isak heads Newcastle to glory

Newcastle started the match with plenty of energy, building momentum from an upbeat midweek performance against Chelsea.

12 minutes in, Longstaff knocked the ball wide for Gordon who crossed the ball with his first touch for Isak who was running in. Gordon’s cross was a beauty and seemed to hang in the air for Isak who headed the ball past David Raya in the Arsenal goal.

For the rest of the match, Newcastle matched Arsenal throughout. The Magpies worked hard to shut out Arsenal’s biggest threat, Bukayo Saka, who still managed to develop Arsenal’s best chances with some dangerous balls into the box. However, in the end it wasn’t enough and Newcastle held onto their lead and delivered another blow to Arsenal’s title chances.

Final score: Newcastle United 1 - 0 Arsenal

The phrases from the story that I want to talk about are:

• To build momentum
• An upbeat performance

To build momentum

The word momentum comes from physics and it’s a way to talk about the power that a moving object has that’s produced by its mass and velocity. Basically, if something heavy is moving fast, it’s going to have lots of power and be very difficult to stop. To build momentum means to slowly speed up, to slowly gain energy and is used literally to talk about large vehicles and figuratively to talk about processes. We often use it in sports to describe a team as it gets stronger and starts playing better. This phrase can be used to describe a team during a match, or over the course of a campaign.

An upbeat performance

The adjective upbeat comes from music and was originally a noun that refers to a light beat that comes before a heavy beat. However, it’s more commonly used as an adjective that means happy and positive or optimistic about the future. In sports, if a team delivers an upbeat performance, it means they play in a lively, energetic, and positive way. The team looks like they are enjoying themselves and feel positive about their chances and are excited and enthusiastic.

Now it’s time for the second story.

Forest dominate 10-man West Ham

Forest have been a joy to watch this season and thrilled their fans again on Saturday with an enthralling performance.

The home side signalled their intent early on with some quick and clever moves. When Chris Wood headed the ball into the net from Alex Moreno’s cross it seemed inevitable. This was Wood’s eighth goal in 10 games.

West Ham seemed to be getting frustrated by Forest’s positivity and their attempts to shut the home side down became more and more reckless, leading to Edson Alvarez getting sent off after taking out Anthony Elanga.

In the second half, 10-man West Ham didn’t stand a chance. Callum Hudson-Odoi doubled Forest’s lead with a beautifully placed free kick and then Ola Aina sealed the win with a stunning strike in the 78th minute.

Final score: Nottingham Forest 3 - 0 West Ham United

The words and phrases from the story that I want to talk about are:

• A joy to watch
• Inevitable
• Reckless

A joy to watch

If something is a joy to watch, it’s really enjoyable, usually because it’s done really well with great skill or because the person doing it is so upbeat about it that their positivity makes you happy. There’s something very satisfying about watching someone do something really well. There are some youtube channels of people making things that I really like to put on in the background. Watching a master of a craft is always entertaining and if they are doing something fun, it’s enjoyable; it brings you joy so you can say it’s a joy to watch.

Inevitable

If something is inevitable, it is certain to happen and cannot be avoided. It’s often used when talking about an event or outcome that people may see coming, even if they try to prevent it. In the Avengers movies, the big villain Thanos describes himself as inevitable meaning that nobody can stop him. This is one of those strange negative adjectives that doesn’t have a positive partner. Its closest antonym is avoidable, but that has its own negative form unavoidable. Inevitable feels a bit more dramatic than unavoidable and we use it more for significant events. So you might say, I’m sorry I’m late. I had an earlier appointment that was unavoidable, but you wouldn’t use inevitable in this case. However, you could say, after his poor performance and absences from work, it was inevitable that he would be fired.

Reckless

I have spoken about this a few times in this podcast. The adjective reckless describes someone who is careless and doesn’t think about the risks or possible dangers of their actions. Reckless driving is a criminal offence in the UK. If you drive your car without paying enough attention, then you are being reckless. In football, if a player makes a dangerous tackle, even if they don’t actually make contact with another player, it’s still reckless. So, a reckless person takes actions without thinking about what might go wrong.

Now it’s time for the third story.

Solanke double secures Spurs win

Tottenham started the match in 10th place in front of a nervous home crowd.

Villa went in front in the 32nd minute from a corner kick. There was a lot of argy-bargy in the box in the lead up to the corner kick. Lucas Digne took the kick well, putting the ball in the middle of the box. The ball glanced off Bentacur's shoulder and was goalbound, then blocked by Vicario, only to fall for Morgan Rogers who thumped it over the line.

At the start of the second half, Brennan Johnson equalised for Spurs, after connecting with a great ball into the box from Son Heung-Min. This goal completely changed the atmosphere at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and it wasn't long before the home side went into the lead. Kulusevski played a clever little through ball for Solanke who skipped past Villa’s back line before scoring with a crisp finish. Solanke scored a second just minutes later after Spurs surged towards goal. It was a great team effort and Solanke was perfectly placed to score from close range.

In the last seconds of the game, Diego Carlos brought down Solanke on the edge of the area giving away a free kick for Spurs. Maddison stepped up and fired his fiftieth Premier League goal into the top right corner.

Final score: Tottenham Hotspur 4-1 Aston Villa

The phrases from the story that I want to talk about are:

• Argy-bargy
• To glance off
• Argy-bargy

Argy-bargy

The term argy-bargy is informal and mostly used in the UK. It means arguing and pushing. When people get upset with each other and they argue and shout and almost fight, then that’s some argy-bargy. You get a lot of argy-bargy at school where kids get into arguments that are almost fights and there’s some pushing perhaps, but no serious fighting. It’s very common in football when players get wound up with each other and lose their temper without totally losing control. You might hear that there was a bit of an argy-bargy or a little argy-bargy or even regular argy-bargy. In the story, I said there was a lot of argy-bargy because there were lots of arguments and some pushing. It’s not a serious sounding way to describe a disagreement so it’s quite common in conversations about sports or when talking about minor disputes or quarrels among friends.

To glance off

Normally, a glance is a very quick look. If you glance at something, you look at it for less than a second. If something glances off something, it hits the surface and then bounces off, but very lightly. So, in football, if a striker hits the crossbar and it comes right back at them, then we’d say it bounced back. If it changes direction, say between 30 and 90 degrees, you could say it deflected off the crossbar and if it hit the crossbar and changed direction by less than 30 degrees, usually only a slight change, then we could say that it glanced off. I think it’s more common to talk about the ball glancing off a defender than the crossbar, but I hope my description makes sense. There are no real technical definitions of the boundaries between glancing off and a deflection, but if a ball takes a very slight deflection you can say it glanced off ... the defender, for example.

Today, I’ve spoken about 7 useful words and phrases.

The words and phrases were:

• To build momentum
• An upbeat performance
• A joy to watch
• Inevitable
• Reckless
• Argy-bargy
• To glance off

Listen to the stories one more time to hear this language in context.

Language challenge

Right, now it’s time.... for you to think about this language again. I have used AI to come up with examples of today’s phrases. I have removed the vocabulary from the stories so I want you to fill in the gaps with the correct forms of the language from the podcast.

Number 1. The children’s dance was __________, full of energy and smiles.

Number 2. There was some ___________ between the players after the referee made a controversial decision.

Number 3. The project was slow at first, but we’re starting to __________ and complete tasks faster.

Number 4. Her shot _____________ the defender’s leg, changing direction and surprising the goalkeeper.

Number 5. Growing older is __________, but we can choose how we live each day.

Number 6. Climbing the mountain alone was _________, as he didn’t have the right equipment.

Number 7. Despite the rain, the band delivered ________________ that lifted everyone's spirits.

Leave your answers to this language challenge in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website.

Premier League Predictions

Now it’s time to talk about the Premier League Predictions.

So my first prediction last week was the Newcastle Arsenal match and I predicted that Arsenal would win 2-0. Only Hasan and AndreTorre made predictions for this match and you both agreed with me so ... we were all wrong.

It was good to see Newcastle playing so positively though a disappointing result for an Arsenal fan.

My second prediction was about the Forest - West Ham match and I predicted a Forest victory. And so did Hasan, AndreTorre and Ahmed Abouzeid and we were all right. None of us got the exact score, but we were close.

My third prediction was for the Spurs - Villa clash and I thought it was going to be a draw. AndreTorre thought Villa would win so ... we were both wrong. Hasan and Ahmed managed to predict the result so well done both of you, but nobody predicted the scoreline.

Now, I’m going to make three new Premier League predictions for three of the matches coming up this weekend. I’d like to challenge you to make your own predictions and we’ll see if any of us get them right.

Prediction 1. The easiest match for me this weekend is the Liverpool - Aston Villa match. Liverpool are leading the league and playing well and while Villa have had a respectable start to the campaign, I don’t think they have the firepower to challenge the reds. Final score: Liverpool 3 - 1 Aston Villa

Prediction 2. My second prediction is for the Brighton - Manchester City match. City are expected to bounce back after a series of losses, but I think Brighton will make the most of their home advantage and shut them out. Final score: Brighton and Hove Albion 0 - 0 Manchester City

Prediction 3. This last prediction is the hardest. I’m not going to make an Arsenal prediction every week, but with the return of Martin Odegaard at Arsenal, I think we’re going to see the Gunners getting back into the swing of things. Chelsea at home are also an exciting team to watch so I think that both teams will fancy their chances and we’ll see upbeat performances. Final score: Chelsea 2 - 3 Arsenal

What do you think? Leave your predictions for the three matches and let’s see whose predictions are the best.

Football phrase

Now it’s time for this week's football phrases. For those of you who like hunting for the source of these phrases, today, I’ve extracted them from an article on the Premier League website about the performances of Premier League teams in the Champion’s League.

This week’s football phrase is *********. This is another way of describing the results, that is how many goals each team have. You can talk about this during the match and you can talk about the final *********.

This week’s fiendish football phrase is ** *** *******. This is a funny phrase. A ****** is a type of shelter that is recessed into the ground or into a hillside. I think that in the past, the teams manager and other coaches would watch the match from these little ... holes. Now, the phrase is used to say who the manager of a team is. In the article, it talks about Manchester United’s performance against City in the past when both teams had different managers ** *** *******.

If you know either of the answers, be sure to leave them in a comment on the page for this podcast on Premier Skills English.

Before I finish, I am going to go through the answers to last week’s language challenge.

Number 1. The movie had relentless action, with one thrilling scene after another.

Number 2. Without enough firepower, the team struggled to create scoring chances in the match.

Number 3. The young footballer shows promise; he could become one of the best players in a few years.

Number 4. It was a cagey affair at first, as each side was waiting for the other to make a mistake.

Number 5. Their coach praised the textbook corner kick routine, saying it was exactly how they practised.

Number 6. If you keep practising English every day, it will yield results, and you’ll get better quickly.

Number 7. He took his family’s support for granted until he moved away and realised how much they helped him.

Number 8. The new player made an impact right away, scoring in his first match.

Number 9. The team’s strong start in the match showed they meant business and wanted to win.

Number 10. When offered the job, she accepted without hesitation because it was her dream role.

Number 11. She tried baking a cake but made a mess of it, and it didn’t taste good.

Number 12. As soon as the whistle blew, the players surged forwards to attack.

And 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 everyone stays fit and healthy and safe.

Bye for now and enjoy your football.