Football Language: Rooted to the foot of the table

When a team has been bottom of the league for a long time and does not appear to have any chance of improvement – of escaping relegation – we say that
they are rooted to the foot of the table. Here, the word ‘
rooted‘ suggests that the team’s position is fixed and will not move easily (think of the roots of a tree), while the noun ‘
foot‘ means the bottom of the league. To ‘
be rooted to the foot of the table’ or sometimes ‘
to be rooted to the bottom of the table‘ means that the team is last in the league and probably has been there for a long time.
- Example: Sunderland are currently rooted to the foot of the Premier League table and are 6 points away from safety.
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