THE 93:20 NEWSLETTER:- ISSUE 86

Author

Howard Hockin
February 19, 2026

Hello, and welcome to Issue 86 of the 93:20 Newsletter. Three days ago,  I was wondering whether I could fill a newsletter with content – now I’m having to clip stuff out. Another interesting week – good and (very) bad.

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Let’s crack on. And where better to start than in North London.

Well, I didn’t see THAT coming. Arsenal were such a shoe-in to beat Wolves, I had no intention of checking the score. Curling at the Winter Olympics was a better prospect, and as I am convinced that me turning on a rival’s game will inevitably lead to them scoring, at no point did I check in to the match, until after the full-time whistle – even I can’t spoil things at that point. Arsenal fans were already jittery prior to this game, and that Liverpool game will have broken a few. To think that just one-and-a-bit games ago, many were ready to call the title race. Now they are again, for a different side.

Ultimately, the pressure on the Arsenal fans is down to time, having endured 22 years since the last title - the desperation is tangible. It’s hard to walk the walk when you have precious little to back it up, but bless them, they’re trying to talk the talk as well, ignoring the lack of silverware, but they know in their own minds that their arrogance and moral superiority would be so much easier if they had a league title to fall back on. And should that happen, then you’ll be pining for the days of the Liverpool and United rivalries.

The future is irrelevant, as sometimes you have to live in the moment. I will spend two days laughing at Arsenal, because it’s fun, but I am far from assuming this is really in City’s hands now, nor assuming those hands are secure. With the conviction that Aston Villa will not last the course (I will not be budging on this), we have a title race between two imperfect teams, and it’s hard to be bullish or make predictions with conviction, even if one looks far more imperfect right now. A race to the bottom and the top, in many ways, though I did not predict Arsenal’s arse to flap this wildly or early, though apparently it was very windy at Molineux. I truly believed they had the mental fortitude to see this one through, and I was looking forward to a super competitive City from next season onwards, a young and very talented squad that should only get better and better. And yet here we are, and I have to be a bag of nerves again in the closing months of a season.

I have to wonder about Mikel Arteta, and his laughable psychological tricks he has employed on the squad for many years. With every bad result, the resemblance to David Brent grows stronger. Does he really think lightbulb analogies are going to see his team across the line in a title race? To reiterate, I am not going to predict how this title race plays out - I had previously viewed Arsenal as vulnerable, but so were/are City - but Arsenal’s current issues are not tactical, but psychological. And as an Arsenal fan that has got to be worrying, if the players are crumbling in a season when they were not even put under much pressure. Arsenal have the lowest points total for a team that are top of the Premier League after 27 games since Leicester in 2015/16. The Wolves result has moved the dial, at least for now, at it has exposed fundamental issues.

They will now go and thrash Spurs on Sunday.

James Trafford

Our young, back-up keeper hit the headlines after the Salford City match, with obvious discontent at the situation he found himself in. It was discussed far too much, including by me shortly, and as Lloyd said on the Mixed Bag podcast this week, it’s not anything to be particularly bothered about.

As always in these situations, most people seem to have fallen into one of two camps. Either you think James Trafford has been hard done-to, or that he has no cause for complaint, and should have kept his mouth shut. Not much room for nuance with this one, but is not just possible that every party involved has just cause here, and that the James Trafford is little more than a victim of circumstance? And Ederson.

Let’s cut to the chase, Trafford is ill-advised to appear on screen with a face like a slapped arse (though this may be his normal face, which I can associate with) bemoaning his opportunities in the middle of February. I mean, what does this achieve? Ultimately, I’m not bothered enough to get annoyed by someone speaking honestly in front of a camera, whether they have a point or not. I couldn’t care less about “club protocol” or the right way about doing things, these are human beings, they can lapse, err or veer from the norm. No one died as a result. I’d rather this, from the horse’s mouth, than stuff being leaked and supplied to the media via agents, as many big City players (and thousands elsewhere) have done down the years. Donnarumma’s agent did just that recently, talking about his client’s desire to play back in Italy, yet not a word of criticism. The timing though is weird, as it’s hard to see what it achieves. I’m not sure Pep will lose too much sleep over his comments, though he dug a bigger hole with the media in the mixed zone, but with a cup final approaching, he’s not done his chances of starting much good. He can’t move away until the summer, so it feels worthless to kick up a fuss now.

But I do think he has been stitched up to some extent, but I would not blame City for that. Trafford was never likely to be Number 1 at City this season, as he would have started the season behind Ederson. But it is surely blindingly obvious that his path to being Number 1 in the future was much clearer. He would understandably have expected Ederson to be in the final year of his City career, so Trafford had a season to embed himself and put forward a case to be Ederson’s successor. Ederson himself has not always securely held onto that Number 1 spot, so chances may have come either earlier. Replace Ederson with Donnarumma, and that path was securely blocked. Donnarumma may have arrived and stunk the place out, but it was hardly likely, and within a couple of months, Trafford will have realised that he wasn’t becoming City’s No 1 in the foreseeable future. It’s a World Cup year, and perhaps Trafford is seeing his squad place fizzling away, but with both scenarios, he was likely to get the same amount of playing time.
Either way, he didn’t say anything worth losing sleep over. City would rather loan him out, as there is still the prospect of him being City’s No 1 long-term, and they won’t want to lose out like they did with Cole Palmer on a future England player that is in their grasp, but I’m not sure Trafford will be overjoyed with the prospect of a loan. Ultimately, if he wants to be annoyed at anyone, be annoyed at Ederson who spent another summer trying to leave, and left it so late that City had little choice to act as they did, and were never going to turn down a Donnarumma-sized opportunity.

Berluddy VAR

Last weekend was the best advert for VAR anyone could have envisaged. A succession of appalling match official decisions strengthened the argument that they have forgotten how to do their job without VAR backing them up. Thing is, obvious decisions are often not given when VAR is in place, though not as blatant as some of those mistakes witnessed last weekend.

Chris Kavanagh and pals were stood down for this weekend after their Villa Park horror show. But ultimately, what does standing down a referee for a week achieve? A chance for him to think about his actions on the naughty step? I’m sure that will make a huge difference on his return. Better than inflicting him on the Championship, I guess.

VAR is going nowhere, but there are simple, easy solutions that would make it more palatable for most fans. Increase the offside line by 5cm, so that any offsides given are also visible to the naked eye, and eradicate forensic examinations of goals, by putting a two-minute time limit on VAR action – I previously worried that this would lead to panicked decisions, but I think the pros outweigh the cons.

Mourinho, Benfica et al.

It pains me to end on a bitter note, but blame Benfica for that. You know what happened this week, so I will not break it all down. Me and Lloyd also discussed it on the Mixed Bag podcast.

One thought immediately popped into my head, when I heard Mark Clattenburg take the same approach as Jose Mourinho when on co-commentary, an approach he then apologised for the following day. There is this little voice in the heads of many people, white people, that sees Vinicius Jr wiggling his hips by the corner flag and the voice exclaims – “what a ****, he really doesn’t help himself”. For Mark Clattenburg as we know, it was his actual voice. He’s really annoying, so what does he expect? I mean, if he doesn’t want to be racially abused, maybe he should stop winding people up, right? An astonishing viewpoint, but one plenty are more than willing to espouse. What choice did Prestianni have, after all? Of course, wind up merchants are two-a-penny in football, and if they’re someone like Jamie Vardy, who just happens to be white, they’re LEGENDS. If they’re Vinicius Jr, they need to look at their own conduct. Now, I actually think Vinicius Jr is a prize arsehole, and it is nothing to do with the colour of his skin. And it is, and I can’t believe it needs saying, obviously not an excuse for racial abuse.

The incident itself was shameful. I was not there of course, we cannot prove what was said, but we can make some conclusions from the evidence available, in addition to the all too-regular monkey chants from members of the crowd, for which there will be, as usual, zero consequences. This was not one man’s word against another’s. Whatever happened, the manager of the player accused, and the club itself, could have salvaged something from this depressing episode. Instead, they chose to double-down, and that’s the most soul-sapping part of all of this. First, the club. They could have shown a base level of decency and released a statement supporting their player (which is inevitable in such situations), reiterating their commitment to stamp out racism and all discrimination, and to state their willingness to cooperate fully with any investigation. Instead, they disgraced themselves, by releasing a video claiming that Vinicius Jr could not have heard the words of Prestianni due to the distance they were apart, a video that showed them stood a yard apart. What goes through the heads of people when they release stuff like this? Even without the video disproving their claim, the statement was a disgrace.

And so to the once-special one. In the words of Antonio Conte, Jose Mourinho has always been a little man, and the evidence mounts with every passing year. I have had a loathing of this **** for a good decade now, once his charisma and tactical prowess waned, but I know he can also be a force for good when it suits him, and when I saw him talking to Vinicius Jr. on the pitch I thought “good for him”, for trying to placate a difficult situation.
Silly me – turns out he was blaming Vinicius Jr. for the fall-out, for over-celebrating, in one of history’s most blatant acts of hypocrisy. His subsequent post-match arguments were some of the weakest you could possibly hear, implementing the classic “some of my best friends are black” angle. Distilled down, he suggested that as the club was not racist, as proved by one of its legends being black, then an individual player could not possibly be racist either. Shameful, pathetic, and totally in-line with much of his previous behaviour. And then the coward gets himself sent off so he doesn’t have to stand on the Bernabeu touchline once more next week. It is coming to something when I am rooting for a Real Madrid victory.

But panic over – because according to Prestianni, he wasn’t being racist, just homophobic. Phew! We can now all move on and forget this ever happened.

And in another newsletter that has not painted match officials in a positive light, credit must be given to the referee for how he handled the situation. What a horrible position to be put in.

AND FINALLY

I think it’s only fair we end on a lighter note. So I post this without comment.

WHAT WE HAVE BEEN UP TO THIS WEEK

As is often the case, when City don’t play, the content increases!

THE CATCH UP – EPISODE 3

Howard caught up with special guest Kevin Day to put the world to rights, with a bit of Crystal Palace chat too.

THE HUB:- EPISODE 55

Bailey is joined by Matt Davies to discuss Nottingham Forest this season, and the performances of Elliot Anderson, his development and best role.

IT’S LB SHOW:- EPISODE 7

LB and Ahsan chat bottle jobs, title races and a whole lot more.

THE WEEKEND SHOW

The usual packed show, looking at the week that was, and another big weekend match.

THE HUB:- EPISODE 56

Coming soon – Bailey chatting to City Tactics about all things City.

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