This Week: Goals, goals goals!

This Week: Goals, goals, goals

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: Matchweek 2 in the Premier League gave us goals, goals, goals. 39 goals in only eight matches.

Jack: Five goals a game on average and there were some great matches and great goals.

Laura: 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. 

Jack: We’re going to look at some football English for you to learn and this week we’re going to focus on six 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.

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

Jack: Don’t forget that we also have our weekly Premier Skills English podcast that is released every Friday. Every week we help you with some different vocabulary or an aspect of grammar.

Laura: Our latest podcast is called Understanding Grammar: Adverbs

Rich: In the podcast, I drive Rowan to training but we have a few problems on the way.

Jack: We focus on adverbs of frequency and where you can place adverbs in a sentence. You can find this podcast and more on the Premier Skills English homepage now.

Laura: OK, you’re now going to hear our three headlines. After each headline, we’ll have a little discussion and look at some vocabulary. 

Rich: The words and phrases we are looking at this week are: to turn on the style, to run the show, to be off your line, to wrap up the points, from close range and a tap-in.

Jack: 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: Five-star performances from Everton and Spurs.

Rich: Tottenham and Everton turned on the style at the weekend both scoring five in wins against Southampton and West Bromwich Albion. Dominic Calvert-Lewin grabbed his first career hat-trick for the Toffees and Son Heung-Min scored four for Spurs. Son and Harry Kane ran the show in the second half. Kane scored and provided the assist for all four of Son’s goals.

Laura: That’s two out of two for Everton. This new-look Everton team is very different from last season.

Rich: And James Rodriguez got a brilliant goal on his home debut. Things are looking up for Everton.

Jack: And Tottenham. Five goals away from home would normally be the big story but …

Laura: Yes, Gareth Bale returning to Spurs from Real Madrid. I bet Spurs fans can’t wait for him to be fit and out on the pitch.

Jack: Let’s have a look at two phrases from our opening headline. The first phrase we want to look at is to turn on the style.

Laura: To turn on is a phrasal verb. We turn things on and off all the time. We turn on the lights. We turn on the computer. We turn on the shower. When we turn on something we start the flow of something by pressing a button or a switch.

Rich: We said that Tottenham and Everton turned on the style. This has the same meaning but it’s a bit more figurative.

Jack: Tottenham suddenly started playing really well with lots of creativity. They turned on the style.

Laura: The next phrase is to run the show. We said that Son Heung-Min and Harry Kane ran the show for Spurs.

Rich: To run the show means to be in control of a situation and to be the stars or main protagonists in that situation.

Jack: Son and Kane took control of the game and were much better than everyone else. They ran the show for Spurs.

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

Headline 2

Laura: Eagles fly at Old Trafford.

Jack: Crystal Palace stunned Manchester United as United’s season got off to the worst possible start with a 3-1 defeat at Old Trafford. Andros Townsend gave the visitors an early lead and Palace extended their lead in the second half with a retaken penalty. Jordan Ayew’s effort was saved by David De Gea but the referee ordered it to be retaken as De Gea was off his line. This time Wilfried Zaha stepped up and cooly put the ball past De Gea and then Zaha wrapped up the points for Palace with five minutes to go.  

Rich: A fantastic win for Palace. They won at Old Trafford last season, too.

Jack: That’s two wins out of two for Crystal Palace. The Eagles are flying.

Laura: Let’s look at a couple of phrases from that headline. The first I want us to look at is to be off your line. Jack said De Gea was off his line. 

Rich: We might hear this phrase a lot this season because it’s something that VAR will be looking at when there is a penalty.

Jack: The line is the goalline. When a penalty is taken the goalkeeper must stay on the goalline and can’t move forwards towards the ball. At least one foot has to be on the line when the penalty kick is taken.

Laura: If neither foot is on the line we say that the keeper is off his line and the penalty will need to be taken again.

Rich: You might also hear people say move off the line. David De Gea moved off his line.

Jack: The other phrase we want to look at is to wrap up the points. I said Wilfried Zaha wrapped up the points for Palace when he scored his team’s third goal.

Laura: To wrap something up is a phrasal verb that has a number of meanings but there are two that are relevant to this situation.

Rich: To wrap something up can mean to complete something or bring something to an end. At the end of a long meeting someone might say something like: let’s try to wrap things up quickly - we all want to go home.

Jack: Wilfried Zaha completed Crystal Palace’s mission. They wanted three points and they got three points because of Zaha’s goals. Zaha’s goal wrapped up the points for Palace.

Laura: Yes, it could have this meaning but to wrap something up also means to cover something in a material like paper. We wrap up presents.

Rich: Yes, at Christmas time I buy and then wrap up lots of presents for my kids.

Laura: I like to think that by scoring that goal Wilfried Zaha wrapped up the three points for Crystal Palace. It was like a little present for the fans and the club.

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

Headline 3

Rich: Reds win first top-six clash of the season.

Laura: Liverpool came out on top in their clash with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. The match turned in the Champions favour when Andreas Christensen was sent off for the hosts on the stroke of half-time. The Premier League Champions took full advantage and scored two goals within ten minutes of the restart. Sadio Mane scored both. The first a header from close range and the second a tap-in after the Chelsea goalkeeper got a clearance horribly wrong.

Jack: A good win for Liverpool at one of their closest rivals.

Rich: Yes, Chelsea were a bit too defensive and Liverpool were on top even before the red card.

Laura: The first phrase we want to look at from our final headline is close-range or from close range. We often hear a player scoring from close range.

Jack: Close-range means at or from a short distance. It’s used in sports and when using guns. The man was shot at close-range. Sadio Mane scored from close range.

Rich: We also use the opposite. A player might shoot from long-range which is far away from goal - outside the penalty area.

Laura: Our final phrase this week is a tap-in. This word describes a very easy goal from close range.

Jack: Yes, it’s so easy you only have to tap it into the net with your foot. An easy, light hit of the ball.

Rich: The Chelsea goalkeeper gave the ball to Sadio Mane and he just had to tap it into the empty net. 

Laura: Players don’t always score though. I remember a few times saying ‘I can’t believe he missed. It was a tap-in.’

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:  to turn on the style, to run the show, to be off your line, to wrap up the points, from close range and a tap-in.

Prediction

Rich: It’s time for this week’s Premier League prediction. 

Laura: Jack predicted an away win for Liverpool last week and Liverpool won.

Jack: Yes, this prediction stuff is easy. I’ll leave it to you to have a go this week, Laura.

Rich: Here are the Matchweek three fixtures to choose from, Laura: Brighton against Man Utd, Crystal Palace versus Everton, West Brom at home to Chelsea, Southampton away at Burnley, Sheffield United v Leeds, Spurs against Newcastle, Manchester City at home to Leicester, West Ham against Wolves and Fulham at home to Aston Villa.

Laura: I’m going to talk about Manchester CIty’s first home match of the season. City are at home to Leicester who have made a really good start to the season. The Foxes have two wins out of two and have scored seven goals but City are on a very different level to Burnley and West Brom. City will have seen Liverpool make a great start to their title defence and will no that it’s important to not drop any points even at this early stage of the season. For that reason, I’m going for a comfortable CIty win. Final score: Manchester City 3-0 Leicester City.

Jack: Yes, I don’t think many would disagree with that prediction.

Rich: We want you to make your predictions on the Premier Skills English website.

Laura: Before we finish this section we want to point you in the direction of the Premier Skills English Fantasy Football League.

Jack: Thanks to one of our listeners - Mo Beckham from Turkey for helping us set this up. It’s a good idea to have a fantasy Premier League and if you play Fantasy Football on the Premier League website it’s very easy to join the Premier Skills English League.

Laura: We’ve put all the details on the Premier Skills English website.

Language Challenge

Rich: 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 to turn on the style and our language challenge this week includes three phrasal verbs with the word turn.

Laura: Write your answers in the comments section and if your answers are correct you will see that we have replaced your answer with asterisks so other listeners can guess too. Here are the three sentences.

Rich: They took an early lead but everything turned (out) all right because we won 3-1.

Jack: I thought the match would be postponed because the team coach didn’t turn (up) until five minutes before kick-off.

Laura: I really hope he turns (down) that offer from Barcelona. I want him to stay at our club forever.

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

Jack: 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.

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football.