In this week’s football review we offer congratulations to Chelsea for winning the English title, sympathise with Newcastle United fans as their team disintegrates and wonder what is going on with Championship side Blackpool. To help with understanding you can find explanations of key vocabulary in bold below.This week’s football review – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Chelsea, Newcastle and Blackpool
Good
Chelsea won the Premier League for the first time in five years after they defeated London rivals Crystal Palace 1-0 at home at the weekend. This was Jose Mourinho’s third win with the Blues after victories in 2005 and 2006, while it was the club’s fifth title overall. Chelsea are currently ten points clear of second place Arsenal with three games remaining and are deserved champions: Eden Hazard was voted player of the year, while five of his team mates were voted onto the team of the year and clearly Jose Mourinho will be manager of the year. Can anyone stop them next year? Congratulations also to Celtic for winning the Scottish Premiership and to Turin side Juventus for winning the Serie A title in Italy. Remarkably for both sides this was their fourth championship in a row.
Bad
Newcastle United lost 0-3 away at Leicester City at the weekend – their 8th defeat in a row – to leave the club only 2 points above the drop zone. Inexperienced manager John Carver appears to have lost the dressing room as two of his players were sent off and the rest of the team’s performance was abject. Confidence is low and they desperately need at least one win if they are to have a chance of moving away from the relegation dog fight. Desperate times for the north-east club.
Ugly
Back in 2010 Blackpool were in the Premier League playing wonderful attacking football but since then things have turned sour for the Tangerines. They have been relegated to the third tier of English football – Division 1 – after finishing bottom of the Championship, while in the final home game of the season hundreds of fans, angry at the way the club has been run, invaded the pitch and refused to move causing the game to be abandoned. Ugly times indeed for Blackpool.
Vocabulary
the Blues: Chelsea’s nickname
the drop zone: The bottom three places in England; the relegation zone
abject: Extremely poor
relegation dog fight: There are five teams trying to escape from the bottom of the table
have turned sour: Have gone badly wrong
the Tangerines: The nickname of Blackpool
