This Week: A bittersweet victory

Welcome to This Week from Premier Skills English, a weekly review of football action for learners of English from across the globe. In This Week, Jack talks about three stories from this week in the Premier League and there are lots of football English words and phrases for you to learn.

If the listening was difficult, you can listen and read the transcript at the same time.

Read the transcript and listen at the same time.

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.

This week, I’m talking about Kevin De Bruyne’s achievement at City, a bittersweet moment for Leandro Trossard and disappointment for both teams in a thriller at Villa Park.

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

Sensational
Humility
To not buy something
Bittersweet
To stab
To feel conflicted
To let someone down
To come across as
On balance

Listen out for this vocabulary in this week’s story.

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

Last week, the phrase was the noun qualification. At this point in the season, there are three battles. The battle for survival in the league, the battle for the title itself and the battle for qualification for European football. This word comes from the verb which means to earn enough points to play in a competition. So before the world cup, teams have to play rounds of matches in groups to see which teams are good enough to qualify for the main tournament. These are qualification rounds.

Congratulations to AndreTorre102 from Brazil, Sisman74 from Turkey, Wojciech M from Poland, Alex from Ukraine, Lukas from Czechia, Jacob Burns from Poland, HSN from Turkey, LeoFabiano from Brazil and Denis2000 from Belarus.

You all worked out that the word I was looking for was qualification.

Keep listening till the end of the podcast for a new football phrase.

Now it’s time for the first story.

Ton up for De Bruyne

Manchester City travelled down to South London to take on Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.

After conceding an early goal, Kevin De Bruyne levelled things up with a picture perfect postage stamp top corner strike. The Belgian’s 99th goal was a sensational equaliser powerfully struck from the corner of the box that no goalkeeper could have kept out.

Later in the match, City were well in the lead. De Bruyne passed to Jack Grealish who made a characteristic run to the goal line, stretching open the defence before passing back to Rodrigo who controlled the ball for De Bruyne to run onto and strike with enough force to defeat the quickest reactions of the keeper scoring his 100th goal for Manchester City.

After the match, De Bruyne dismissed his achievement saying it just meant I’d been there for a long time and as much as I approve of his humility, nobody’s buying it. De Bruyne is widely regarded as one of the best and against Crystal Palace, he played another remarkable game.

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

Sensational
Humility
To not buy something

Sensational

The adjective sensational normally means really exciting, unusually exciting. It’s a really strong positive adjective you can use when you think something is really great. You might say that a film was sensational or if you have an amazing meal somewhere you might describe it as a sensational meal. If you think that someone looks really good, perhaps they are dressed up for a party, you might tell them that they look sensational. I did describe another use of this adjective a few weeks ago which is slightly negative. When we use the word sensational to describe a story in a newspaper or perhaps online, the adjective sensational is used to describe stories that are supposed to shock or excite you and sometimes such stories are exaggerated or about celebrities and might not be true or at least are not really news. However, De Bruyne’s sensational equaliser was all good. There was nothing to exaggerate, it really was a fantastic shot.

Humility

The noun humility describes the quality of not being too proud or arrogant. The adjective form is humble which is defined as not believing you are important. I’m not sure that this is quite right. I think that you can show humility and behave in a humble way and still recognise the importance of your position or what you have done, it just means you don’t become too proud. The Cambridge online dictionary says humility means not being proud because you are aware of your bad qualities, but I’m not sure that’s quite right either. I agree with the not being proud part, but I think that humility often comes from a sense of perspective.

To not buy something

This is an interesting expression that we use to say that we don’t believe what someone has said. If someone tells you something, perhaps that they have a business opportunity that will make you thousands of pounds and you don’t believe them, you might say, I don’t buy it. I said that nobody was buying De Bruyne’s explanation for his hundred goals. De Bruyne suggested it was just because he’s been at City for so long, but he’s scored those goals alongside some of the world’s top football talent and put in a world-class performance against Palace.

Very briefly, I want to mention the phrase ton-up. This was used in the commentary and I was thinking about including it in the language focus, but it’s really not common. A ton is a slang term for 100. I’m not sure where these slang terms come from, often with cockney slang, you can work out where a word comes from because it rhymes, but I’m really not sure about the money slang. For your reference, in case you hear it, £20 is a score, £100 is a ton, £500 is a monkey and £1000 is a grand. So to ton-up, in terms of football, means to score 100 goals.

Time to move on to the next story.

Trossard scores a bittersweet winner at Brighton

Arsenal were already two goals up and looking comfortably in control. In the 86th minute, Pascal Gross gave the ball away just inside Arsenal’s half. Havertz stabbed the ball into the path of Leandro Trossard who sprinted with the ball towards the Brighton goal. Trossard had played some great football for the Seagulls for three and a half seasons before he signed for Arsenal. And now, the Belgian forward was charging towards his old goal with Carlos Baleba hot on his heels.

Trossard flicked the ball over Brighton’s keeper Bart Verbruggen, who did get a finger, to the ball but it wasn’t enough. The ball hit the back of the net and for a second, Trossard stood with his arms raised in celebration. However, this wasn’t his usual celebration and I think might have felt a little conflicted as he absorbed the cheers from the Arsenal fans and boos from the Brighton fans who had celebrated so many of his goals in the past.

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

Bittersweet
To stab
To feel conflicted

Bittersweet

The adjective bittersweet is used to describe situations that make you feel happy and a little bit sad at the same time. When I was teaching in British Council centres in different countries, when my contract was finished, I would find a new job in a new country. I always felt excited about moving to a new country but a little bit sad about leaving the people I’d met and knowing what I was going to miss about a place when I’d moved on so I always found leaving bittersweet.

To stab

This verb usually means to try to stick a knife or a sharp object into someone or something. So you might read about a killer who stabbed his or her victim. However, you can also use it slightly figuratively in football English to talk about a short quick kick, usually with your toe. You have to imagine your foot is a knife and then you stab the ball. A quick kick that punts the ball towards a teammate can be called a stab.

To feel conflicted

This is similar to bittersweet only, it’s more complicated. So you feel bittersweet when you are happy and sad about something. If you feel conflicted, you don’t really know how to feel about something because there are positives and negatives connected. So if you get a promotion at work then you should feel proud and excited about your new role, but if you have a colleague who has been working longer and you think you should have got the promotion, you might feel conflicted about your promotion. So to be o r feel conflicted describes a complicated set of feelings.

Now it’s time for the final story.

Villa and the Bees let down by a draw

At the end of the match at Villa Park on Saturday, Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins was interviewed on camera. Normally, if a player scores two goals in a match, when they are asked about it after the match, they are pretty happy, perhaps even proud of their performance, but Ollie Watkins was not.

Later, Brentford manager Thomas Frank was on screen. Frank always comes across as positive and sensible, but he, too, seemed disappointed by the result.

For most of the match, Villa were the better team and finished the first half two goals up. In the second half, Brentford had an incredible nine minutes and scored three goals. Villa looked stunned at having lost a two goal lead.

In the 80th minute, Watkins scored again equalising for Villa and the match finished level.

On balance, you might think that both teams would be relieved to share the points, but at this stage in the season, the pressure is so high that neither team were able to see that they had performed well and delivered an exciting match for their fans.

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

To let someone down
To come across as
On balance

To let someone down

If you let someone down, you disappoint them by failing to do something that they were relying on you to do. If your car breaks down and your friend promises to give you a lift to an important appointment and then at the end, doesn’t turn up to help you, then your friend will have let you down. Sometimes, we use this phrasal verb to talk about an event, like when someone fails to do what you expect them to do, but it’s also used more broadly to describe a feeling. For example, if you trust someone and they turn out to be dishonest, you might feel let down. In most of the examples that I’ve found, this phrase is used as a self-reflection. So you might read about someone who thought they had let their parents down or that a footballer felt that they’d let their fans down.

To come across as

If you come across as something, say you come across as honest or you come across as intelligent, then you act in a way that makes people think you are honest or intelligent. So you can use this phrasal verb to describe someone. You might say: she comes across as very confident or he comes across as a bit lazy. This phrasal verb expresses a first impression. So you might say she comes across as cold and unfriendly, but when you get to know her, she’s lovely, she’s really just shy.

On balance

We use this idiom to say that we have thought about the positive and negative arguments or sides of an issue and have made a judgement. So after thinking about where I should go on holiday for a long time, I have decided, on balance, that London is my best option. Anytime you have to make a difficult decision, if you have to think for a long time, when you are ready to share your judgement, you can say on balance, this is what I have decided. This is a useful phrase to use in a speaking exam when you are asked to compare and contrast different ideas and then express your opinion. On the one hand this, on the other hand that ... on balance, this is my best judgement.

Today, I’ve spoken about 9 useful words and phrases.

The words and phrases were:

Sensational
Humility
To not buy something
Bittersweet
To stab
To feel conflicted
To let someone down
To come across as
On balance

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

Ton up for De Bruyne

Manchester City travelled down to South London to take on Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.

After conceding an early goal, Kevin De Bruyne levelled things up with a picture perfect postage stamp top corner strike. The Belgian’s 99th goal was a sensational equaliser powerfully struck from the corner of the box that no goalkeeper could have kept out.

Later in the match, City were well in the lead. De Bruyne passed to Jack Grealish who made a characteristic run to the goal line, stretching open the defence before passing back to Rodrigo who controlled the ball for De Bruyne to run onto and strike with enough force to defeat the quickest reactions of the keeper scoring his 100th goal for Manchester City.

After the match, De Bruyne dismissed his achievement saying it just meant I’d been there for a long time and as much as I approve of his humility, nobody’s buying it. De Bruyne is widely regarded as one of the best and against Crystal Palace, he played another remarkable game.

Trossard scores a bittersweet winner at Brighton

Arsenal were already two goals up and looking comfortably in control. In the 86th minute, Pascal Gross gave the ball away just inside Arsenal’s half. Havertz stabbed the ball into the path of Leandro Trossard who sprinted with the ball towards the Brighton goal. Trossard had played some great football for the Seagulls for three and a half seasons before he signed for Arsenal. And now, the Belgian forward was charging towards his old goal with Carlos Baleba hot on his heels.

Trossard flicked the ball over Brighton’s keeper Bart Verbruggen, who did get a finger, to the ball but it wasn’t enough. The ball hit the back of the net and for a second, Trossard stood with his arms raised in celebration. However, this wasn’t his usual celebration and I think might have felt a little conflicted as he absorbed the cheers from the Arsenal fans and boos from the Brighton fans who had celebrated so many of his goals in the past.

Villa and the Bees let down by a draw

At the end of the match at Villa Park on Saturday, Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins was interviewed on camera. Normally, if a player scores two goals in a match, when they are asked about it after the match, they are pretty happy, perhaps even proud of their performance, but Ollie Watkins was not.

Later, Brentford manager Thomas Frank was on screen. Frank always comes across as positive and sensible, but he, too, seemed disappointed by the result.

For most of the match, Villa were the better team and finished the first half two goals up. In the second half, Brentford had an incredible nine minutes and scored three goals. Villa looked stunned at having lost a two goal lead.

In the 80th minute, Watkins scored again equalising for Villa and the match finished level.

On balance, you might think that both teams would be relieved to share the points, but at this stage in the season, the pressure is so high that neither team were able to see that they had performed well and delivered an exciting match for their fans.

Language challenge

Right, now it’s time for you to think about this language again. I have found examples of today’s words and phrases in stories online and edited them slightly. 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 ending of the book was ___________, leaving readers both satisfied and longing for more.

Number 2. Her ___________ was evident in the way she treated everyone with respect, regardless of their status or background.

Number 3. With a quick _________ of the pen, he signed the contract without hesitation.

Number 4. Jack Nicholson isn’t retired yet, says director James L. Brooks: ‘I __________ ’ that he’s done with acting.

Number 5. Pop singer Mika hit the stage in a feast for the eyes and soul last night with a ___________ performance that lit the venue up.

Number 6. Cheltenham Town boss Darrell Clarke says his team “___________ our supporters” in defeat to relegated Carlisle United.

Number 7. The famous whistleblower reflected on the troubles he’d faced saying: "__________, we are better off for knowing what our government is doing in secret."

Number 8. The new company CEO admitted that she _________________ a bit cold and standoffish in her first interview.

Number 9. Gareth Southgate has dropped a strong hint that he could walk away from the England manager’s job, saying he feels “___________” about whether to stay on in light of the various lows of the past 18 months.

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

Football phrase

Now it’s time for this week's football phrase.

This week, the phrase is a ******* ***** strike. This is a slightly weird but interesting and creative bit of football English that I heard in the commentary this weekend. It means a shot into the top right corner of the goal; into the place where you would stick a ******* ****** if the goal was an envelope.

If you know the answer, be sure to leave it 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 championship opener with Featherstone Rovers will ‘go down to the wire’ says Batley Bulldogs’ head coach.

Number 2. Trees on the shore of a lake have been felled in what has been described as an "act of unspeakable vandalism".

Number 3. The politician has demanded an apology from one of his ex-colleagues after he allegedly slapped him on the back of the head and called him a ... bad word.

Number 4. A farmer has been called heroic for saving a small lamb after a heartwarming video showed the farmer climbing head-first into a large pipe to rescue the lost animal.

Number 5. “When the history of our country is written, historians will have to acknowledge that much of the change that we have seen has been advanced through the Congressional Black Caucus,” Warnock said. “This caucus has been the tip of the spear of change in our country.”

Number 6. Middlesbrough have just six games remaining this season but their Player of the Year award feels very much still up for grabs.

Number 7. Alexis Mac Allister has impressed Liverpool supporters again – but this time for the authenticity of his Scouse accent which has been described as 'surprisingly spot on'.

Number 8. The desire for Stanley tumblers has become a "craze" after images of the colourful drinking containers went viral on social media. On Jan. 3, customers lined up early to get their hands on one. But two people in line didn't want to wait. At about 7:15 a.m., police responded to a report of a tussle and theft of a tumbler.

Number 9. On the Premier League website: Backheels from Mane and Henry. Flicks by Bernardo and Ramsey. Watch the most audacious finishes in Premier League history

Number 10. Sheffield United grabbed an unlikely equaliser at Anfield through a Conor Bradley own goal. Could this prove to be a pivotal moment in Liverpool's season? No.

Number 11. Wilfried Zaha says he was not bothered by his difficult spell at Manchester United and won’t let it derail his career.

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.

The language from the story that I’m going to talk about this week is:

Sensational
Humility
To not buy something
Bittersweet
To stab
To feel conflicted
To let someone down
To come across as
On balance

Ton up for De Bruyne

Kevin De Bruyne celebrates scoring Manchester City's first goal during the match against Crystal Palace

Manchester City travelled down to South London to take on Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.

After conceding an early goal, Kevin De Bruyne levelled things up with a picture perfect postage stamp top corner strike. The Belgian’s 99th goal was a sensational equaliser powerfully struck from the corner of the box that no goalkeeper could have kept out.

Later in the match, City were well in the lead. De Bruyne passed to Jack Grealish who made a characteristic run to the goal line, stretching open the defence before passing back to Rodrigo who controlled the ball for De Bruyne to run onto and strike with enough force to defeat the quickest reactions of the keeper scoring his 100th goal for Manchester City.

After the match, De Bruyne dismissed his achievement saying it just meant I’d been there for a long time and as much as I approve of his humility, nobody’s buying it. De Bruyne is widely regarded as one of the best and against Crystal Palace, he played another remarkable game.

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

Sensational
Humility
To not buy something

Sensational

The adjective sensational normally means really exciting, unusually exciting. It’s a really strong positive adjective you can use when you think something is really great. You might say that a film was sensational or if you have an amazing meal somewhere you might describe it as a sensational meal. If you think that someone looks really good, perhaps they are dressed up for a party, you might tell them that they look sensational. I did describe another use of this adjective a few weeks ago which is slightly negative. When we use the word sensational to describe a story in a newspaper or perhaps online, the adjective sensational is used to describe stories that are supposed to shock or excite you and sometimes such stories are exaggerated or about celebrities and might not be true or at least are not really news. However, De Bruyne’s sensational equaliser was all good. There was nothing to exaggerate, it really was a fantastic shot.

Humility

The noun humility describes the quality of not being too proud or arrogant. The adjective form is humble which is defined as not believing you are important. I’m not sure that this is quite right. I think that you can show humility and behave in a humble way and still recognise the importance of your position or what you have done, it just means you don’t become too proud. The Cambridge online dictionary says humility means not being proud because you are aware of your bad qualities, but I’m not sure that’s quite right either. I agree with the not being proud part, but I think that humility often comes from a sense of perspective.

To not buy something

This is an interesting expression that we use to say that we don’t believe what someone has said. If someone tells you something, perhaps that they have a business opportunity that will make you thousands of pounds and you don’t believe them, you might say, I don’t buy it. I said that nobody was buying De Bruyne’s explanation for his hundred goals. De Bruyne suggested it was just because he’s been at City for so long, but he’s scored those goals alongside some of the world’s top football talent and put in a world-class performance against Palace.

Very briefly, I want to mention the phrase ton-up. This was used in the commentary and I was thinking about including it in the language focus, but it’s really not common. A ton is a slang term for 100. I’m not sure where these slang terms come from, often with cockney slang, you can work out where a word comes from because it rhymes, but I’m really not sure about the money slang. For your reference, in case you hear it, £20 is a score, £100 is a ton, £500 is a monkey and £1000 is a grand. So to ton-up, in terms of football, means to score 100 goals.

Time to move on to the next story.

Trossard scores a bittersweet winner at Brighton

Leandro Trossard scores Arsenal's third goal during the match with Brighton & Hove Albion

Arsenal were already two goals up and looking comfortably in control. In the 86th minute, Pascal Gross gave the ball away just inside Arsenal’s half. Havertz stabbed the ball into the path of Leandro Trossard who sprinted with the ball towards the Brighton goal. Trossard had played some great football for the Seagulls for three and a half seasons before he signed for Arsenal. And now, the Belgian forward was charging towards his old goal with Carlos Baleba hot on his heels.

Trossard flicked the ball over Brighton’s keeper Bart Verbruggen, who did get a finger, to the ball but it wasn’t enough. The ball hit the back of the net and for a second, Trossard stood with his arms raised in celebration. However, this wasn’t his usual celebration and I think might have felt a little conflicted as he absorbed the cheers from the Arsenal fans and boos from the Brighton fans who had celebrated so many of his goals in the past.

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

Bittersweet
To stab
To feel conflicted

Bittersweet

The adjective bittersweet is used to describe situations that make you feel happy and a little bit sad at the same time. When I was teaching in British Council centres in different countries, when my contract was finished, I would find a new job in a new country. I always felt excited about moving to a new country but a little bit sad about leaving the people I’d met and knowing what I was going to miss about a place when I’d moved on so I always found leaving bittersweet.

To stab

This verb usually means to try to stick a knife or a sharp object into someone or something. So you might read about a killer who stabbed his or her victim. However, you can also use it slightly figuratively in football English to talk about a short quick kick, usually with your toe. You have to imagine your foot is a knife and then you stab the ball. A quick kick that punts the ball towards a teammate can be called a stab.

To feel conflicted

This is similar to bittersweet only, it’s more complicated. So you feel bittersweet when you are happy and sad about something. If you feel conflicted, you don’t really know how to feel about something because there are positives and negatives connected. So if you get a promotion at work then you should feel proud and excited about your new role, but if you have a colleague who has been working longer and you think you should have got the promotion, you might feel conflicted about your promotion. So to be o r feel conflicted describes a complicated set of feelings.

Now it’s time for the final story.

Villa and the Bees let down by a draw

Ollie Watkins celebrates scoring Aston Villa's first goal during the match with Brentford FC

At the end of the match at Villa Park on Saturday, Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins was interviewed on camera. Normally, if a player scores two goals in a match, when they are asked about it after the match, they are pretty happy, perhaps even proud of their performance, but Ollie Watkins was not.

Later, Brentford manager Thomas Frank was on screen. Frank always comes across as positive and sensible, but he, too, seemed disappointed by the result.

For most of the match, Villa were the better team and finished the first half two goals up. In the second half, Brentford had an incredible nine minutes and scored three goals. Villa looked stunned at having lost a two goal lead.

In the 80th minute, Watkins scored again equalising for Villa and the match finished level.

On balance, you might think that both teams would be relieved to share the points, but at this stage in the season, the pressure is so high that neither team were able to see that they had performed well and delivered an exciting match for their fans.

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

To let someone down
To come across as
On balance

To let someone down

If you let someone down, you disappoint them by failing to do something that they were relying on you to do. If your car breaks down and your friend promises to give you a lift to an important appointment and then at the end, doesn’t turn up to help you, then your friend will have let you down. Sometimes, we use this phrasal verb to talk about an event, like when someone fails to do what you expect them to do, but it’s also used more broadly to describe a feeling. For example, if you trust someone and they turn out to be dishonest, you might feel let down. In most of the examples that I’ve found, this phrase is used as a self-reflection. So you might read about someone who thought they had let their parents down or that a footballer felt that they’d let their fans down.

To come across as

If you come across as something, say you come across as honest or you come across as intelligent, then you act in a way that makes people think you are honest or intelligent. So you can use this phrasal verb to describe someone. You might say: she comes across as very confident or he comes across as a bit lazy. This phrasal verb expresses a first impression. So you might say she comes across as cold and unfriendly, but when you get to know her, she’s lovely, she’s really just shy.

On balance

We use this idiom to say that we have thought about the positive and negative arguments or sides of an issue and have made a judgement. So after thinking about where I should go on holiday for a long time, I have decided, on balance, that London is my best option. Anytime you have to make a difficult decision, if you have to think for a long time, when you are ready to share your judgement, you can say on balance, this is what I have decided. This is a useful phrase to use in a speaking exam when you are asked to compare and contrast different ideas and then express your opinion. On the one hand this, on the other hand that ... on balance, this is my best judgement.

Language challenge

Right, now it’s time for you to think about this language again in another language challenge. As with the vocabulary from the first story, I have found examples of the words and phrases in stories online and edited them slightly. I have removed the vocabulary from the story so I want you to fill in the gaps with the correct forms of the language from the podcast.