This Week: Match winner

This Week: Match winner

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 one long unbeaten run that came to an end and another that keeps going.

Jack: We’re going to look at three headlines from the weekend’s action and look at some words and phrases connected to those headlines. 

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 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: to gift something to someone, a howler, to make amends, the icing on the cake, struggling, match-winner, chasing pack and to fluff your lines.

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: Alisson gifts City the points. 

Laura: Manchester City thrashed Liverpool 4-1 at Anfield to extend their lead at the top of the Premier League table to five points. Ilkay Gundogan missed a first-half penalty for City but made amends when he put City ahead. Mohamed Salah equalised for the hosts but two howlers from Liverpool goalkeeper, Alisson, gifted City the victory. His mistakes allowed Gundogan to get his second and Raheem Sterling to get CIty’s third. Phil Foden’s powerful shot was the icing on the cake for the Manchester team.

Rich: It was a very difficult afternoon for Liverpool. City were just too good and you can’t afford to make individual mistakes like that in a match. 

Jack: It was very unlike Alisson. He’s been great for Liverpool over the last few seasons but he did make a couple of howlers in this match.

Laura: And that’s the first word we’re going to look at today: a howler.

Rich: A howler is a shocking mistake. A mistake that normally would never be made. These types of mistakes are usually stupid, embarrassing, or obvious.

Jack: Or all three! Howler is often used to describe goalkeeping errors. Similar words to howler are blunder and gaffe.

Laura: We said Alisson gifted CIty the points and his howlers gifted City victory.

Rich: To gift someone something means to make it easy for an opponent to score. Liverpool gave Manchester City a gift - or a present - they gifted them victory.

Jack: That’s enough about Liverpool. Let’s talk about the CIty. Laura said that Ilkay Gundogan made amends for his first-half penalty miss when he scored in the second half.

Rich: To make amends means to do something good because you did something bad before. Gundogan missed a penalty but then made amends by scoring a goal.

Laura: If I have an argument with my partner I might buy some flowers and say sorry the next day to make amends.

Jack: We described Phil Foden’s goal as the icing on the cake for City.

Rich: This is a nice idiom - the icing on the cake. It means a final good thing to finish something that is already good. City were winning 3-1 that was a good performance already then they scored again - that was the icing on the cake.

Laura: The icing is the liquid made from water and sugar or butter that you put on top of a cake at the end. It makes something that is tasty even tastier.

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

Headline 2

Laura: Chelsea’s unbeaten run ended by Brighton.

Rich: Chelsea’s unbeaten 33-match unbeaten run came to an end when they were beaten 2-1 by struggling Brighton in the Women’s Super League. Megan Connolly was the match-winner when her corner went straight in. Chelsea remains top of the table after Manchester United fell to a shock defeat to Reading but Manchester City closed the gap with a 2-1 win at Arsenal.

Jack: Only two points separate the top three in the table.

Laura: I was really surprised by that Chelsea result. I don’t think anyone saw that coming.

Rich: Yes, if they were going to be beaten you’d have thought it would have been one of the Manchester clubs not struggling Brighton & Hove Albion.

Jack: Struggling Brighton. THat’s our first word from this headline - struggling. 

Laura: A team that is near the bottom of the table or not in good form are often described as struggling.

Rich: Struggling is used as an adjective to describe someone or something that is trying hard to succeed but is not successful.

Jack: It can be used as a verb and a noun, too. Teams at the bottom of the table are struggling to stay up. It’s a struggle for teams at the bottom.

Laura: The second word I want to look at is match-winner. We said that Megan Connolly was the match-winner for Brighton.

Rich: A match-winner is either the player who wins a match for their team or the goal that wins the match for a team.

Jack: Megan Connolly was the match-winner because her goal won the game for Brighton.

Laura: She was the match-winner and she scored the match-winner.

Rich: The match-winner doesn’t have to be a goalscorer. A goalkeeper who saves a penalty or a defender who clears the ball off the line can also be described as the match-winner.

Jack: We often use the adjective match-winning, too. That looks like the match-winning goal, that was a match-winning save or that was a match-winning block by the defender.

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

Headline 3

Rich: Chasing pack fluff their lines.

Jack: There was little joy for the chasing pack in the Premier League as the teams that started the weekend in second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth all failed to win. Everton got a last-minute equaliser at Manchester United while Leicester and West Ham could only pick up a point apiece in goalless draws at struggling Wolves and Fulham respectively. 

Laura: I think Manchester City fans would have enjoyed all those results.

Rich: It’s looking good for them, isn’t it? FIve points clear with a game in hand. Still a long way to go though.

Jack: Let’s look at some language from this final headline. The first phrase is the chasing pack. I think we’ve looked at this phrase before.

Laura: This phrase comes from the animal world. 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: It’s a pity that Wolves are not in the chasing pack but at least the Foxes are.

Rich: Our final phrase this week is to fluff your lines. This phrase comes from the world of theatre.

Jack: To fluff your lines means to forget what you have to say when your acting or to say the wrong thing.

Laura: We used it in the headline as it’s used in a football context to mean that a team forgot what they were supposed to or did it badly.

Rich: The chasing pack were supposed to win their matches but they didn’t win - they fluffed their lines.

Jack: OK. We’ve looked at three stories and lots of vocabulary in our headlines. The words and phrases we’ve looked at were: to gift something to someone, a howler, to make amends, the icing on the cake, struggling, math-winner, chasing pack and to fluff your lines.

Laura: Listen to the headlines again to hear these words and phrases in context and don’t forget to look at the website for the transcript if you want to check your understanding of this vocabulary.

Headlines - Repeat

Prediction

Jack: Last week Rich predicted a Liverpool win against Manchester City but his predictions are going from bad to worse as City thrashed Liverpool 4-1.

Laura: So, we’re going to rest Rich this week.

Laura: We’re going to substitute him for Laura who actually predicted a City win last week.

Jack: Laura - do you want to tell us which match you are going to predict this weekend.

Laura: Sure. I’m going to be watching Manchester City against Tottenham to see if City can make it fourteen wins in a row. Spurs got back to winning ways against West Brom last weekend but I don’t think they will be able to stop City winning again. Spurs will defend and try to hit City on the break but I think City will have too much for Tottenham. Final score: Manchester City 2-0 Tottenham Hotspur.

Rich: I agree. That’s exactly what I would’ve said.

Jack: What do you think the score will be? We want all of you to make your predictions for this match and all the Premier League fixtures which you can find 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 spoke about the idiom the icing on the cake. I love cake so here are three other idioms that include the word cake. Can you tell us the missing words?

Jack: Scoring goals is a ______ of cake for Ilkay Gundogan at the moment. It’s so easy for him.

Laura: Everyone loves the new kit. They are selling like _____ cakes in the club shop.

Rich: Every year bosses are taking a bigger _____ of the cake. Profits should be shared more evenly if you ask me.

Jack: 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.

Laura: 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.

Rich: Before we finish we just wanted to say that we hope you found this lesson useful and we hope all of you stay fit and healthy.

Jack: Bye for now and enjoy your football