Matchweek 23 - Seventh Heaven

Introduction  

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.

Rich: We want you to use and practise these phrases by interacting with Premier League fans from around the world in our comments section.

Jack: If you listen to us on Spotify or 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 our latest content on the Premier Skills English homepage or the Premier Skills-British Council Facebook page. 

Jack: Let’s start with our headlines!

Headlines

Rich: Liverpool beat Palace in seven-goal thriller.

Jack: Liverpool beat Crystal Palace by four goals to three to maintain their four-point lead at the Premier League summit. That lead looked in danger when Andros Townsend scored a fantastic breakaway goal for Palace and when the team from London equalised in the second half to make it two all. However, Liverpool first came back with two goals from Mohamed Salah, and then goals from Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane saw them home. James Milner saw red late on and Palace grabbed a late consolation goal but Liverpool hung on to the points.

Rich: United in seventh heaven.

Jack: Manchester United beat Brighton 2-1 and have now won all seven games under Ole Gunnar Solsjkaer. Paul Pogba and Marcus Rashford have been in sensational form for the new manager and it was this pair who grabbed the goals again. Pogba scored a first-half penalty and Rashford scored a brilliant individual goal. United are now only three points behind Arsenal and Chelsea in the final Champions League spot.

Rich: Wolves and Leicester in Premier League classic.

Jack: The match at Liverpool wasn’t the only 4-3 result of the weekend. Wolves and Leicester played one of the games of the season at Molineux. Wolves went into an early 2-0 lead but Leicester came back with two goals of their own in the second half. Wolves went back in front but Leicester equalised with two minutes left to play. It looked like it would be a draw but then, with virtually the last kick of the game, Diogo Jota got his hat-trick and Wolves had a dramatic 4-3 win.

Rich: I saw the highlights of that match - there were a lot of them!

Jack: There were a lot of goals this weekend - 33 of them. Great to watch if you’re not a defender!

Vocabulary alert!

Rich: In our vocabulary alert, we look at some football English that we used in the headlines.

Jack: Our six words and phrases this week are: summit, consolation goal, thriller, two-all, to hang on, and to be in seventh heaven.

Rich: Let’s start with the word summit. Liverpool have a four-point lead at the Premier League summit. Where is the summit?

Jack: The summit is the top of the Premier League table - first place. We usually use summit to describe the top of mountains. The summit of Mount Everest is the world’s highest peak - 8848 metres.

Rich: The next phrase is a consolation goal. Crystal Palace were losing 4-2 and scored a consolation goal with the last kick of the game to make it 4-3.

Jack: A consolation goal is a goal for the losing team that doesn’t affect the result of the match.

Rich: The next word is a thriller. When a match is very exciting, the score changes from one to side to the other and there are lots of goals we often say the match is a thriller.

Jack: It’s the same word we use to describe stories or films that are exciting and often about crime: they are thrillers.

Rich: The next phrase is two-all. Crystal Palace equalised to make it two-all against Liverpool. Two all means two goals to each team. You can say one-all, two all, three all and so on.

Jack: But you can’t say nill all. You say nil-nil or goalless draw.

Rich: The next phrase is to hang on. Liverpool had a player sent off and the opposition scored a late goal but hung on to win.

Jack: To hang on is a phrasal verb and in a football context means to manage to do something when it’s difficult.

Rich: The final phrase is to be in seventh heaven. Manchester United are in seventh heaven.

Jack: This is an idiom and generally means to be in a very, very happy place.

Rich: That’s definitely where Manchester United are at the moment.

Football Awards

Rich: Right, every week, we give out three Matchweek awards. 

Jack: The awards are Player of the Week, Team of the Week and Goal of the Week.

Rich: In the comments section, you need to tell us if you agree with our choices.

Jack: Let’s start with Player of the Week. There were some strong performances in the Premier League last weekend. 

Rich: Raheem Sterling was great for Manchester City in their 3-0 win at Huddersfield, Laurent Koscielny kept a clean sheet for Arsenal and scored a goal with his shoulder against Chelsea, and Marcus Rashford scored again for Manchester United.

Jack: But our Player of the Week is Wolverhampton Wanderers striker Diogo Jota. A hat-trick including an injury-time winner. Brilliant!

Rich: What about our Team of the Week? A really difficult choice this week. Two seven-goal thrillers and big wins for Manchester City and Newcastle United. But our Team of the Week is Arsenal. A 2-0 win against Chelsea and the race for the Champions League is wide open.

Jack: Finally, Goal of the Week. Another great goal by Marcus Rashford for United, James Ward Prowse scored a brilliant goal for Southampton,  but our Goal of the Week goes to Bournemouth’s Callum Wilson. His goal against West Ham was stunning. Check it out if you haven’t seen it!

Matchweek Prediction 

Jack: Every week, Rich predicts the result of one Premier League match and we want you to make your prediction, too.

Rich: This weekend we have FA Cup matches so Matchweek 24 is ten days away - matches will be played in midweek on the 29th and 30th of January.

Jack: And what match are you looking at?

Rich: I’m going to predict a tricky away match for Manchester City. City are away to Newcastle United. Newcastle won their last home match 3-0 and there is always a big match atmosphere at St.James Park. City, however, are in really good form and have scored twenty-two goals in their last four matches and have conceded none. I think this will be a more difficult match than most people expect. I think Newcastle will take the lead but City will come back and win. My final prediction is Newcastle United 1-2 Manchester City

Jack: I don’t know why but I’m going for a surprise draw. I think it ’ll finish two-all.

Rich: We will see. Make your predictions on the page below. You get one point if you predict the right result and three points if you predict the right score.

Jack: Right, that’s all we have time for. I hope you have enjoyed this football round-up. Join the discussion at the bottom of the page. 

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football.