THE 93:20 NEWSLETTER:- ISSUE 72

Author

Howard Hockin
November 20, 2025

Hello, and welcome to Issue 72 of the 93:20 Newsletter. So much to talk about, that this is the first of two newsletters in the next day or so. Hope that’s ok! I started writing, and didn’t stop until my hand started hurting.

As always, thanks for those that have supported me – a lot of hours has gone into this week’s output, but I do it because I want to!

You can donate via this link, and help the content keep flowing, and aid my crisp addiction – Scampi Fries are getting more expensive.

Also – it’s just over a month until Christmas. The tree may not be up, but I’m going for it, as some people actually plan ahead, so do check out my books on Amazon. To be brutally honest – Twelfth Man and the book of Newsletter articles are the best content I’ve ever scribed, so do give them a go, and remember – the Newsletters book is not a season review, but a look at the world of football, so don’t be put off.

On we go, and a tired subject, but one that I feel needs mentioning.

The Jude Bellingham coverage continues apace, much of it extremely unsavoury. The world has truly lost its mind.

Ian Wright has waded in and made his thoughts perfectly clear. His comments, calling out coverage as outright racism seem to have garnered widespread support. His comments are clearly targeted at Craig Hope, a quite terrible journalist on a wide array of topics, so I would not attempt to deduce Hope’s motives for his relentless coverage and opinions on one particular high-profile England player – and he has commented on him A LOT. Nevertheless, he’s been way off with opinions on too many players for me to make sense of his tumbleweed brain. There has been a theme with England scapegoats of course, and the coverage of Bellingham and some clear attitude issues has been way over the top and thus should be questioned, but that is true of most coverage in the modern age, especially during the content drought of an international break. There's an element of chicken and egg about all of this. Which came first? Bellingham's perceived attitude problems, or the media targeting Bellingham, helping shape said problems. I will reiterate, I have no strong opinions on the true reasons for why Bellingham gets the coverage he does, and it will be multi-faceted, depending on who is doing the commenting. But Ian Wright should be careful throwing out race as the reason without certifiable evidence. Bellingham was almost universally lauded in the past, with no criticism, and as I have written about on numerous occasions, can still do no wrong for many in the media. Tuchel has publicly called him out, so was he swayed by skin colour? Of course not. Plenty in the media in the past have though, clearly deeply unsettled by people of colour spending money. This has been more confined to the front pages than the back, though not exclusively.
Ultimately, can we just talk about players’ football performances, and leave them alone off the pitch? A pointless plea, I know, and in a fortnight without club football, Bellingham was always doomed.

As a side note, I have seen a few blues comment on fellow blues’ obsession with Bellingham, which I guess I am perpetuating right now. Their suggestion is that some have it in for him, perhaps fuelled by him turning us down, so it is a natural consequence to want him to fail and pick apart his performances. Truth is, I am now rather glad we did not sign him, one of many bullets dodged since 2008. He simply lacks the discipline to succeed, unless he found his perfect role as a Number 8 under Pep. The attitude does not help, but he’s hardly unique in that respect, but there has been precious little ego in the City squad over the past 15 years or so, considering the talent the club has housed, and I think that has been a key factor in the success. City have scouted character as well as skill, though that is not to say Bellingham couldn’t have fit in.
My “obsession” however comes from a different place, and is not aimed at the player himself, but the media who cover him. The obsession to laud average performances is baffling, and not the fault of Bellingham himself – to my best knowledge, he is not in charge of Henry Winter’s Twitter account, and I applaud his ability to multi-task if he is. Bellingham should be critiqued the same as any other player – that is all I ask. I mean, John Cross this week called him a national treasure. Milligan, Cleese, Everett. Bellingham. What is up with people?! Can you ask stop being so fucking weird over the performances of a footballer? He is no more a national treasure than I am. On what grounds do people like Cross find it acceptable to talk about him like this? A lot of journalists and beyond need to take a step back, punch themselves in the face, press reset and start again. Jude Bellingham is the latest player for which many seem incapable of discussing sensibly, incapable of finding that middle ground.

Either way, I don’t expect Bellingham to change - he can’t help himself for his behaviour, as none of us can. He knows that anything he does is thrown into a spotlight, and that is not fair, but he could help himself – like not looking like an arse when being substituted, much of his behaviour not caught on camera according to some journalists at the Albania game. But none of that really matters. And od I trust the accounts of journalists such as Craig Hope? No.

Let’s move on. Let’s look at that list of bullets dodged by City, of which Bellingham may be the latest. Kaka and Rooney would have been terrible moves for City, in my opinion. Harry Maguire, Fred, Ronaldo (jeez), Alexis Sanchez (plus piano), Jorginho, Antony, Jadon Sancho, Paul Pogba and many more.

The only true regrets are Messi (to see him in a City shirt would have been everything), and Declan Rice, though it never felt that was truly realistic, with his desire to remain in London. Wirtz will probably still come good, but for that money, City have certainly dodged another bullet for now. Sometimes, things just work out for the best, even if it does not appear so at the time.

Erling Haaland

Footballers are just skin and bones, like all of us. They are not deities, and I will never worship them to that level, whatever they achieve.

But I was thinking about Erling Haaland this week, as more goals hit the back of the net – lost count now, and it’s not even December. And what I was thinking was a touch vague and probably cringy too. I'm not one for superlatives when describing anything football related, it comes across as clickbait from a 14-year-old hiding behind an anonymous account on Twitter. However - Haaland has somehow transcended everything that has gone before. There, I've said it. And I'm not just referring to his goal record.

Why? Well, it's just...everything. The goals, the aura, the seeming lack of ego, the humour in his social media output, the humility (he stays humble), and a million little things about his life and how he manages himself. He's utterly unique to me. A year ago, I secretly held the sordid opinion that if he wanted to leave and someone offered £150m, then it wouldn't be the end of the world, as City would adapt, and his style of play wasn't ideally suited to Pep football. Now, the idea of him leaving would break me. At the time of his ridiculously long new contact, a couple of United fans I know desperately tried to portray it as a huge risk to tie someone down for that long. But this is Erling Haaland, and secretly they were probably (no, definitely) jealous and grasping. The flip side is to stand back and marvel at a player of this generational calibre, who breaks records more than I have hot dinners, committing to City for a decade. Just like his generational manager has. He has transcended any aspect of normality, to the extent that deep down, I imagine even rival fans can't find a reason to hate him.

Apropos of nothing, Cristiano Ronaldo spent a day this week hanging out with the likes of Donald Trump and Elon Musk. This was his first visit to the USA for many, many years (2014). Sadly, most media outlets seemed incapable of clarifying why there had been such a large gap between visits.

More musings to follow tomorrow - time for Wayne Rooney and Mike Dean to take centre stage.