Matchweek 3 - First wins and late wins

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. That’s right. We’re going to discuss all the latest football action from Matchweek 3 in the Premier League.

Rich: And not only that but we’ve got lots of interesting words and phrases to help you talk about football in English.

Jack: And we want you to use and practise your English and interact with Premier League fans from around the world in our comments section.

Rich: You can do this on the Premier Skills English website or the Premier Skills-British Council Facebook page.

Jack: Let’s start with this week’s headlines!

Headlines

Rich: Liverpool and Chelsea are the early Premier League leaders.

Jack: Liverpool won 1-0 at home against Brighton and Chelsea beat Newcastle 2-1 which means both teams still have a 100% record at the top of the table. Mo Salah got the winner for Liverpool and Chelsea scored a late winner to see off Newcastle.

Rich: Watford keep up their perfect start.

Jack: Watford have won their first three Premier League games for the first-ever time and are also level at the top of the table. Watford beat Crystal Palace 2-1. Watford held on to win despite Wilfried Zaha’s late goal after scoring through Jose Holebas and another sensational strike from Roberto Pereyra.

Rich: Fulham get off the mark against Burnley.

Jack: Fulham became the first promoted team to win a match this season with a fantastic 4-2 win against Burnley. Two goals from Aleksandar Mitrovic and one each from Jean Serri and Andre Schurrle were enough to secure Fulham’s first win of the season.

Rich: Well done to Fulham this weekend. That was a great way to get off the mark.

Jack: It’s always good to get your first win.

Vocabulary alert!

Rich: In our vocabulary alert, we look at some football English that we used in this week’s headlines.

Jack: The words and phrases we’re looking at this week are all connected to winning.

Rich: The words and phrases are: to win, to beat, to get the winner, a late winner, to hold on to win, to secure a win, to see off and to get off the mark.

Jack: We’ll start with the easier words and then look at the most difficult ones.

Rich: Liverpool won 1-0 at home against Brighton and Chelsea beat Newcastle 2-1.

Jack: The words win and beat are very similar, but we usually win something and beat someone or a team. When we use ‘beat’ we need an object but we don’t when we use ‘win’.

Rich: ‘Liverpool won 1-0’ or ‘Liverpool won the match 1-0’ is a complete sentence but you can’t say ‘Liverpool beat 1-0’ you need to say ‘Liverpool beat Brighton 1-0’.

Jack: To add an object when we use win we often add the word ‘against’. We can say, ‘Liverpool won 1-0 against Brighton’. 

Rich: Let’s look at some other phrases in the headlines.

Jack: Chelsea scored a late winner. 

Rich: A winner is a goal that wins the match for a team. The scores were level and then one team scores the winner. It’s also common to say which player scored the winner. Mo Salah got the winner for Liverpool for example.

Jack: Watford held on to win despite Zaha’s late goal.

Rich: To hold on to win means to win despite the other team coming back and playing well at the end of the game. 

Jack: If you are holding on it usually means you are defending a lot.

Rich: Four goals from Fulham were enough to secure Fulham’s first win of the season.

Jack: To secure a win means to make sure that a win happens or to make it certain that you are going to win.

Rich: You often hear that a player secured the win when the player makes it three or four nil with just a few minutes left.

Jack: You might also hear; the player made the game safe with the fourth goal or something like that.

Rich: Chelsea scored a late winner to see off Newcastle.

Jack: To see off is a phrasal verb which means to beat a team or a challenge from someone.  

Rich: And, finally, ‘Fulham got off the mark against Burnley’.

Jack: To get off the mark is to start something or get your first points, wins or goals. Fulham got their first win of the season so that is why we used this idiom here.

Rich: OK, your challenge now is to listen for these words in the rest of this podcast. We will use all of them.

Jack: The words are: to win, to beat, to get the winner, a late winner, to hold on to win, to secure a win, to see off and to get off the mark.

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: These awards always create a lot of discussion between fans of different teams which is good to see.

Rich: Lots of you agreed with our choices last week but not all of you. AssemJuve from Palestine thought the Goal of the Week award should have gone to Tottenham’s Kieran Trippier.

Jack: And, Zaid from India thought it should have gone to Glenn Murray for his goal for Brighton against Manchester United.

Rich: Good to see everybody saying what you think! Let’s start with this week’s Player of the Week award.

Jack: Eden Hazard was good for Chelsea, James Milner was good for Liverpool but our Player of the Week is … Aleksandar Mitrovic for Fulham.

Rich: He had a great game to get Fulham off the mark in the Premier League and really should have had a hat-trick.

Jack: What about Team of the Week? A difficult choice this week. Wolves held on for a brilliant point against Manchester City, Harry Maguire scored a late winner to help Leicester beat Southampton and Chelsea and Liverpool both won.

Rich: Our Team of the Week are also up at the top of the table challenging. Watford win this week’s award. Could they be a surprise title contender?

Jack: Finally, Goal of the Week. Roberto Pereyra scored another great goal for Watford and Ryan Bertrand scored a stunner for Southampton.

Rich: But our Goal of the Week award goes to Jean Seri for Fulham. The goal helped his team secure a win against Burnley. It was a great long-range strike straight into the top corner. Did you see it?

Jack: Yeah. It was a cracker.

Matchweek Prediction 

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

Rich: Lots of you made predictions for the Manchester United - Tottenham match last week. We’re recording this podcast before that match has been played but, on Tuesday, you can click the link on the Premier Skills English page to see how good your prediction was and where you are in our prediction league.

Jack: What’s your prediction this week, Rich?

Rich: This week I’m going to talk about Watford against Tottenham. Spurs have had a pretty good start to the season but Watford have been the biggest surprise so far. The Hornets have seen off everybody they have played and sit with Chelsea and Liverpool at the top of the Premier League. Most people will be predicting a Tottenham win but I think Watford will go into this one with a lot of confidence and with nothing to lose. Final score: Watford 2-1 Tottenham.

Jack: I think the wheels will come off the Watford bus this weekend. I think it will be a 3-0 win to Spurs.

Rich: 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!