Learn English Through Football Podcast: Can’t Live with Them

In this football language podcast we talk about the noun ‘slump’ and how it is used in football and also look at some big games this weekend. You can read the transcript for this podcast below, while you can also check out our glossary of footballing phrases here and visit our site to access all our previous posts and podcasts. If you have any suggestions or questions then you can contact us at admin@languagecaster.com.

Welcome

DB: You’re listening to the Learning English Through Football Podcast. Hi everyone, my name’s Damon, one half of the languagecaster team. The other half is Damian, who we will hear from later in the show in our predictions section. Damian is based in a chilly London, and I am in Tokyo, Japan, which is also a lot cooler but is also nice and sunny this weekend.

Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Welsh)

Today’s Show



DB: Yes, you are listening to Languagecaster.com. And that message was in Welsh.

And talking of Welsh, we had a nice message from @jamescuff on Bluesky with a list of terms for football in Welsh, including cefn y rhwyd – back of the net! Thanks for that James! So, what football language do we have on the show today. Well, we’ll be talking about the word ‘slump’ and some phrases that are related to it.

And after that, Damian is going to do our predictions section, talking about some big games this weekend.

Stinger: You are listening to languagecaster.com (in Dutch)

DB: Thanks for that message in Dutch. OK, let’s start the show with a look at the word slump and how we use it to talk about football.

Slump

DB: Right, a slump is a bad run of form, a time of bad luck or bad results. If a team, for example, doesn’t win for several matches, we can say they are in a slump or they are suffering a slump in form. Form, of course, is a team or a player’s performance. We can use slump to talk about both teams and players. If a striker hasn’t scored for a long time, they are in a slump. Another great expression for this situation is ‘goal drought’; the player is suffering a goal drought.

We can also use slump as a verb. A team can slump to a defeat. This gives the impression that they have been playing poorly recently and this is another bad result. To make this clearer we could say, they slumped to their third successive defeat or similar.

Manchester City’s Poor Form

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Eleven games have been played so far in the Premier League and the favourites at the start of the season, Manchester City are in second place. They are five points behind the leaders, Liverpool. Manchester City have had a poor run of form recently; they have lost four games in a row. They are in a slump. In their last Premier League game, they slumped to their fourth defeat in a row against Br...