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 story from the Premier League.

This week, I’m talking about Liverpool’s trip to the City Ground to take on Nottingham Forest in a match the Reds needed to win.

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

• Hot on someone’s heels
• A screamer
• Determined
• Relentlessly
• To take the initiative
• The nick of time

Listen out for this vocabulary in the story from the Premier League.

After the story, there will be a language focus and then there will be a language challenge and then at the end of the podcast there will be a new football phrase.

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’s football phrase was to get your name on the scoresheet. OK. This was quite a long phrase that means you have scored in a match. The phrase comes from the records that the officials keep about what goals are scored in a match. I’m not talking about the referee’s book, which is where the referee records serious offences, this is a different, happier place that players want to be on.

Congratulations to Wojciech M from Poland, Ryohei from Japan, AndreTorre102 from Brazil, Hsn from Turkey, Lukáš from Czechia, Vietnguyenngo from Vietnam, Denis2000 from Belarus, Bicooz from Egypt and FH1S From Brazil.

You all worked out that the phrase I was looking for was to get your name on the scoresheet.

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

Now it’s time for this week’s story.

Liverpool lead at the last minute

On Sunday, League-leading Liverpool will welcome champions Manchester City. When they travelled to the City Ground to face Nottingham Forest last weekend, they were only one point clear at the top of the table. With such a big match coming up and their two league rivals, Manchester City and Arsenal hot on their heels, they had to win this one.

Nottingham Forest have not had a great season, but they are not known as the Tricky Trees for nothing. From kick-off, Forest looked dangerous. Divock Origi fired an early screamer at the Liverpool goal that was just wide and not long later looked deadly on the counter. Origi set up Elanga who got past the Liverpool defenders. However, his shot was blocked by Caoimhin Kelleher who scrambled out of goal to meet him.

Liverpool had lots of chances but had trouble making anything out of them. In the match stats at the bottom the report in the Guardian newspaper, it says Liverpool made 21 off-target attempts. Darwin Nunez, in particular, came close at several times throughout the match, but never really looked deadly.

The Reds do deserve credit, though, for their determination. They never looked concerned or lost their composure. They just attacked relentlessly, sending wave after wave of purple shirts at their opponents.

In the 94th minute, Liverpool were still attacking and almost scored from the corner. Matz Sels in the Forest goal managed to get a strong hand to the ball. Minutes later, it was Forest’s turn to take the initiative and they struck back and almost scored. Virgil Vin Dijk blocked the shot but gave away a corner. Forest failed to make much from the corner kick, but play was stopped for a VAR check for a possible foul in the area. VAR cleared the incident so play was restarted with a drop ball that Kelleher fired down the pitch.

It looked like this was going to be the last attack of the match, but it went nowhere when another shot was blocked. It was the 99th minute. The corner ball was played, blocked, and knocked about until Mac Allister floated the ball over for Darwin Nunez, who finally got a head to the ball, sending it past Sels and into the net. Nunez scored the winning goal with almost the last touch of the match, securing the win and the crucial points for Liverpool in the nick of time.

Final score: Nottingham Forest 0 - 1 Liverpool

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

• Hot on someone’s heels
• A screamer
• Determined
• Relentlessly
• To take the initiative
• The nick of time

Hot on someone’s heels

This is a fun idiom that I think is easy enough to understand. It means to follow someone very closely. The word heel means the back of someone’s foot. At one end of your foot are your toes and the hard round bit at the other end is your heel. Anyhow, if someone is hot on your heels, they are chasing you and they are very close to catching you. I read that the hot part comes from hunting and we also say that someone is in hot pursuit if they are chasing someone and that a trail goes cold if the person following loses the person they are following. So if you are hot on someone’s heels, you are close behind them and can easily follow them. I said that Manchester City and Arsenal were hot on the heels of Liverpool because they are only just behind them in the league.

A screamer

We have used the noun screamer to describe something that is very exciting for a long time. In football English, it means a very powerful shot on goal. For a shot to be judged as a screamer, normally it has to be from quite long range. So if someone plays a really powerful shot from distance, you can call it a screamer.

Determination

In the dictionary, determination is described as the ability to continue trying to do something, although it is very difficult. However, I think determination is a belief or state of mind. The adjective determined means that you are confident that you will succeed and have a strong desire so you will keep trying to do something even though you might not be successful right away. This week, my son did his grade 1 piano exam. He worked really hard, learning his pieces and was determined to get a good score in his exam. I am very proud of him. He got his results today and passed his exam with distinction so I think he is a good example of someone who showed determination.

Relentlessly

This adverb means without stopping. We use it when someone does something continually and without stopping, but in an extreme way. Continually or continuously mean without stopping. We use relentlessly to describe actions like attacking or questioning or something like that, that feels almost aggressive or manic.

To take the initiative

I have spoken about this idiom before. The dictionary says it means to be the first person to do something, usually, the first person to solve a problem. I think initiative is a quality; it means you can use your own understanding of a situation, your own judgement to make a decision and a plan and act. You don’t wait to be told by other people what you have to do. In football English, if a team takes the initiative, they start controlling the match and attacking. If a team plays very defensively, their opponents will determine the flow of play. But if they start to attack, then they take the initiative.

The nick of time

This is the first time I’ve spoken about this idiom. It’s quite a common idiom that means at the last possible moment. I have looked up the origin of the phrase because it’s quite a strange phrase. It’s not completely clear where the phrase comes from, but the origin that sounds most likely comes from an old-fashioned way of measuring time, particularly in sporting events. So before people had stopwatches, people would use a stick called a nick stick. This was a stick with small nicks or cuts in it. I’m not sure how people would measure the time between these nicks, perhaps with an hourglass or by counting, but as time progressed, some kind of marker was moved from one nick to the next on the nick stick. The final nick on the nick stick would mark the end of the time period. So if something happened in the nick, it would have been the last possible moment before the end of the event; of the match, for example.

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

The words and phrases were:

• Hot on someone’s heels
• A screamer
• Determined
• Relentlessly
• To take the initiative
• The nick of time

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

Liverpool lead at the last minute

On Sunday, League-leading Liverpool will welcome champions Manchester City. When they travelled to the City Ground to face Nottingham Forest last weekend, they were only one point clear at the top of the table. With such a big match coming up and their two league rivals, Manchester City and Arsenal hot on their heels, they had to win this one.

Nottingham Forest have not had a great season, but they are not known as the Tricky Trees for nothing. From kick-off, Forest looked dangerous. Divock Origi fired an early screamer at the Liverpool goal that was just wide and not long later looked deadly on the counter. Origi set up Elanga who got past the Liverpool defenders. However, his shot was blocked by Caoimhin Kelleher who scrambled out of goal to meet him.

Liverpool had lots of chances but had trouble making anything out of them. In the match stats at the bottom the report in the Guardian newspaper, it says Liverpool made 21 off-target attempts. Darwin Nunez, in particular, came close at several times throughout the match, but never really looked deadly.

The Reds do deserve credit, though, for their determination. They never looked concerned or lost their composure. They just attacked relentlessly, sending wave after wave of purple shirts at their opponents.

In the 94th minute, Liverpool were still attacking and almost scored from the corner. Matz Sels in the Forest goal managed to get a strong hand to the ball. Minutes later, it was Forest’s turn to take the initiative and they struck back and almost scored. Virgil Vin Dijk blocked the shot but gave away a corner. Forest failed to make much from the corner kick, but play was stopped for a VAR check for a possible foul in the area. VAR cleared the incident so play was restarted with a drop ball that Kelleher fired down the pitch.

It looked like this was going to be the last attack of the match, but it went nowhere when another shot was blocked. It was the 99th minute. The corner ball was played, blocked, and knocked about until Mac Allister floated the ball over for Darwin Nunez, who finally got a head to the ball, sending it past Sels and into the net. Nunez scored the winning goal with almost the last touch of the match, securing the win and the crucial points for Liverpool in the nick of time.

Final score: Nottingham Forest 0 - 1 Liverpool

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 story so I want you to fill in the gaps with the correct forms of the language from the podcast.

Number 1. A Leicestershire Police detective has spoken of his ____________ to find answers for a young victim of abuse.

Number 2. Seeing the post office area so filthy did not sit well with Dimitri Coeter, so he _____________ to clean it.

Number 3. The distinguished gentleman ran for his life - his clothes ripped, his hair dishevelled, a furious mob ______________, baying for blood.

Number 4. Rashford said: I've already had some amazing experiences at this incredible club, but there is still a lot more to achieve and I remain ____________ determined to win more trophies in the years ahead.

Number 5. When a junkyard worker in Asheville, North Carolina found a little cat inside a car that was scheduled to be crushed, he rescued her in _______________.

Number 6. Marcus Rashford silenced the Etihad with a _________ to open the scoring in the Manchester derby.

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’s football phrase is ***** *****. This is an informal way to talk about the numbers that are produced when different aspects of game are analysed. So the amount of possession that each team had or the number of corners or yellow and red cards. There are some companies that measure and calculate everything you could possibly think of and the numbers they produce are called the ***** *****.

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 challenges.

Number 1. One woman caused a fuss at a stall after she was denied free food, even allegedly accusing the food seller of discrimination.

Number 2. The FTC Robotics teams from Larson Middle School, the Girl Botz, distinguished themselves by winning several high-profile awards this season.

Number 3. You should show respect for the person who invited you for coffee by arriving early or, at worst, bang on time.

Number 4. Donyell Malen was discarded by former Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger back in August 2017 but Gunners legend Thierry Henry remains a big fan of the forward

Number 5. Driving in heavy traffic can be stressful, but it's really important to keep your cool and stay patient and in control.

Number 6. Sheffield United fan Glyn Sterland, who works at Batty’s Family Butchers in Woodseats, is celebrating a huge slice of luck as he scooped a £150,000 lottery jackpot.

Number 7. The film was not very good. It didn't do the original comics justice and it left fans wondering what the point of it even was.

Number 8. A British man has been accused of bigamy after he married a second wife but claimed it didn’t count because the ceremony was done in Swahali.

Number 9. Mauricio Pochettino lamented Chelsea’s lack of ruthlessness in front of goal after a flurry of missed chances contributed to a 2-1 defeat to Wolves.

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.