Another big weekend of Premier League football sees Manchester City hosting Tottenham – that’s fourth versus second – while there are also big games involving Arsenal and Chelsea taking place on Sunday and we’ll be featuring all those games in our weekly predictions battle. We also have some English for football, and this week we explain the phrases ‘non-league side‘ and ‘first choice‘. To start the show, however, we’ll review some of the footballing news in our good, the bad and the ugly section. Of course, you can read the transcript for the show in our post below (Damian = DF, Damon = DB).

Learn English through Football Podcast: 2016-17 Premier League – Manchester City vs Tottenham

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Transcript of the show

DB: You’re listening to languagecaster’s football language podcast. My name’s Damon and I’m in a sunny but cold Tokyo and hoping to talk to Damian down the line and across a continent in London. Damian? How are things?

DF: Good thanks, Damon. It’s also sunny and cold here in London as we had some freezing conditions here last night. I am also recovering after the thriller at The Etihad Stadium in Manchester yesterday! What do we have on today’s show?

Line up

DB: Well, we’re going to start the show by looking at three stories from the week’s footballing news in our good, the bad and the ugly section. And remember if you have ideas for us for this section, just let us know by emailing us at [email protected]. Now, after that, we have a few phrases common to the beautiful game, and this week we feature ‘non-league side‘ and ‘first choice‘. That will bring us to our weekly quiz question and predictions. This pod goes out after most games were played on Saturday in the Premier League, but we’ll still take a look at what we thought would happen.

DF: Yes indeed. OK, let’s kick off with some of the good news from the world of football.

Good

DF: Well done to Manchester United and England striker Wayne Rooney whose last-minute equaliser against Stoke City meant that he has become the all-time leading goalscorer for the club. Now Rooney has now scored 250 goals for Manchester United – that’s one more than legend Sir Bobby Charlton – and let’s not forget that Rooney is also the top scorer for his country.

Bad

DB: Yes indeed. Well done. Now for bad I was going to say Juventus’ redesigned shirt badge or crest – another nail in the coffin for tradition – but when you look at the history of club crests they certainly have changed a lot through the ages, so Juve’s is no surprise. So, instead for my bad I want to talk about Manchester City’s goalkeeper, Claudio Bravo, who is having nightmare start to his career in the Premi...