A new Premier League season is nearly here, which means only one thing: it’s time for footballers to stand moodily, staring straight ahead, possibly somewhere with artistic lighting and some extremely jerky camerawork, modelling their team’s new kit for the season.
Clubs showing the players their new uniforms and recording their reactions—virtually all of which result in a forced smile and a muttered version of “Yeah, that is wonderful, that is”—have become a relatively recent occurrence.
They could not say it if they did not like the shirts, of course, but we can. Thus, these are the new Premier League home uniforms for this season, ranked.
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Moses, sweet and lovely. Sometimes you do wonder how certain things come about and if people honestly believe they are a good idea. Person B accepts Person A’s suggestion since they do not really understand it but do not want to appear foolish. This gives Person A confidence to approach Person C and say, “Well, Person B believes it is a winner,” and that is when things start to become really exciting.
That is about the only explanation I can think of for this garment, which looks exactly like it was splooged all over a perfectly good blue shirt by someone who took a baseball bat to a lava lamp.
It’s the sort of jersey that would exist if there were football teams in the sci-fi action film ‘Tron’. I don’t care for it.
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It is important to acknowledge that this is not a Southampton kit. Although players will wear it in Southampton games this season and it bears the Southampton emblem, it is not a Southampton uniform. It is a Sunderland kit from a few years later, or at a push, a Brentford kit from about 2014.
But the outfit is not from Southampton. Not in any way. And do not be duped by them into believing that it is. Even if that does not concern you…Is not it a little boring?
It is a double pity that they will be wearing whatever crap this season since a lot more people will be watching them than last season, when the jersey from that season was a fantastic example of Hummel vintage.
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The top searches for “Sudu” on Google feature a match between a Malaysian restaurant in London and Wolves’s new kit suppliers. Is it too nitpicky to argue that the cooks at the restaurant in Queens Park might have created a better football shirt than their namesakes?
The theory is simple: Wolves’ owners, Fosun Sports Group, have a stake in the recently established Sudu and will thus receive a larger share of sales. This lowers the price of the shirt for fans (£58 for the replica), but it is not much help given the recent sharp increase in ticket costs.
However, we must also acknowledge the fundamental truth that this shirt appears to have been designed by an individual who has never created a football shirt before. Which is exactly what it is, for all intents and purposes.
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When a team enters the Premier League after a protracted absence, it is usually a little unsettling to see them sporting a shirt that does not exactly match their uniform.
You want a certain familiarity when wearing Ipswich, which means wearing a lot of white, if not all white, on your sleeves. Not this time: a blue collar with white pinstripes on it. Some of us who are older and more sentimental would also like Fisons to continue sponsoring them, but given that it looks like they have closed, it is understandably a difficult request.
It is okay, but could you determine who is shirt this was in five seconds if you removed the badge? Maybe not.
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I am all for maintaining a theme or consistency in the design of your shirts.But is not this essentially the same shirt that West Ham wore the previous campaign? And for the years 2020–21? And the years 2015–16? And 2011–12?
You understand. West Ham seems to follow a pattern where they experiment with slightly various designs for a year or two, then just revert to this “traditional” style that pays homage to their 1960s and 1970s shirts.
This is not to argue that the shirt is not attractive; taken out of context, it is gorgeous and a perfect illustration of how to keep things simple and clean. However, asking consumers to return a £75 shirt that they spent £75 for a year ago (old news, irrelevant, get with the program, grandma) and pay £75 for a new one (where the only difference is a little different collar) seems a little rum.
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Football area codes are all the rage these days. During Euro 2024, Lamine Yamal was very focused on the 304 postal code of his hometown, whereas Man City’s uniform seems to have been inspired by Manchester’s dialing code, 0161, which is visible on the collar and handcuffs.
It is the only noticeable detail on an otherwise very basic sky blue tee, but the design they chose makes it quite challenging to read the numbers.
It appears more like a haphazard attempt at camouflage from a distance of more than three yards, but up close, the 0 appears to be a “u,” and the 6 appears to be nothing special. Nice idea, however when you can not really see it, it does feel a little pointless.
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Bournemouth
The last Premier League team to unveil their new uniform was Bournemouth, who instead played around with a strange Michael B. Jordan-designed shirt that they only wore during preseason.
Thus, the issue is: Was the delay worthwhile? which has the response, sort of! It is a really good design with powerful stripes and a timeless, aesthetically beautiful bold combo of red and black.
However, when teams that do not often wear gold shirts suddenly do so, you can not help but be a little skeptical. Why? It all seems a little bit like “the football club doth protest too much,” with them attempting to portray an image of glitz and prosperity when winning games would accomplish that much more successfully.
This is available to buy without the awful gambling logo on the front.
Bournemouth
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Brighton’s new kit was introduced in July with the tagline “Extra stripes, extra style.” As a marketing ploy, this sounds a lot like those razor manufacturers that just include an extra blade and claim their product to be the next big thing in shaving technology.
More stripes are a good thing, right? since there is more. Plus, more is preferable to less. More is preferable. Extra! With those extra stripes put in the middle of the existing stripes in an apparent attempt at stripception, the garment is actually rather nice.
In other places, it is rather simple, with a large, bulky collar and large, bulky cuffs next to the slightly odd Kissimmee tourism board sleeve sponsor.
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Adidas appears to have adopted a “less is more” philosophy for all of their kits this season, sticking with simple styles that pay homage to their mid-2000s pattern.
Which is okay, I suppose, but it has resulted in a number of shirts that essentially have the same design: Forest, Manchester United, Fulham, Leicester, and Fulham all have essentially the same design with different colors (though the last two have some unique details), which feels a little swizz.
While it might be impractical to anticipate drastically different designs for every squad, some variance would be desirable.
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The sales spiel for this otherwise fairly plain Man United shirt talks of a ”subtle gradient design on the front and back”, and just in case you weren’t 100 per cent sure what that means, they’re talking about the bits where it makes whoever is wearing the shirt look like they are sweating from the navel up. Otherwise, it’s another cookie cutter Adidas shirt but with that ”subtle gradient design”.
We must also focus on the other Adidas trademark design, the strange band details on the shorts. They essentially give the impression that every player has fallen off their braces, making it reminiscent of the seductive and melancholic figure in a Victorian drama who is captured in an unguarded moment with his blouson undone and a few inches of chest on display, making hearts race.
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After their wild “red stripes on one shoulder, white stripes on the other” performance the previous season, Fulham is going back to basics this year. With the caveat that the red flashes up from the hips do make it appear a little bit like a Bolton shirt from the early 2000s, it is also really attractive despite being extremely simple.
A little ruined it is the large logo on the sleeve sponsor, WebBeds, a B2B accommodation distribution company, as you are probably aware.
Their logo was somewhat less noticeable the previous season, but this time it is almost three times larger than the club symbol. Apparently, they thought that not enough people could see it from the planes passing over Craven Cottage on their way to Heathrow airport, which is a few miles away.
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Another from the Adidas template box, but at least this Forest shirt does have an element of team specific detail to it.
Evidently, Forest takes great pride in their two stars, which are visible above the club emblem, commemorating their victories in the 1979 and 1980 European Cups. This is also reflected in the shirt’s backdrop design, which does a good job of being both discreet and noticeable enough for the people who need to know to see it.
The sponsor’s logo, which is not only incredibly awful but also belongs to a betting organization without a UK license, somewhat ruins the entire thing.
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Do you watch a TV show that you really enjoy, but you also agree with every critique that has been made about it? For instance, the West Wing advertises itself as progressive yet is incredibly condescending to women, is smug, has conversation that is unlike anything anyone has ever heard, and there is no way Toby would have ever disclosed those secrets about the space shuttle. Nevertheless, I adore it and occasionally watch episodes when I need solace.
Which is a long way of stating that this Crystal Palace kit is fantastic, even though it appears to be the work of a student who has been encouraged to create far beyond their skill level and occasionally needs a firm “no.”
I acknowledge that it is a mess on an objective level. However, I would be there at 9 a.m. on the day it went on sale if I were a Palace fan. I adore it. Defend me.
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This Everton outfit has a certain, um, comfortable quality. As a result, no side in the Premier League this season will wear the magnificent chevrons, which naturally irritates me. Hummel used to design their shirts.
This is actually pretty decent, even though it moved to Castore, a company that appears more comfortable producing polo shirts for rugby enthusiasts. Other than the fact that it appears to be a replica of the uniform they wore to win the FA Cup in 1994–1995, I am not really sure why.
According to the description that was issued with it, that does not seem to be on purpose, but if everything goes according to plan, this is a really nice jersey to wear during their final season at Goodison.
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Arsenal have played around with the colours of the three stripes on the shoulder of their shirts ever since returning to Adidas in 2019. They’ve had white on red, blue on red, gold on white and this season, in the opinion of your noble kit ranker, the best combination this season with blue on white.
You need strong contrast, as a rule, and this is most certainly that, a shirt that is a tribute to the one they wore in the early 1990s. It’s a little different while still being identifiably an Arsenal kit, and also features the cannon logo (as opposed to the cannon as part of a shield) for the first time since 1990.
Very strong, although the Emirates logo does seem weirdly massive this year.
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Pay attention, sportsmanship. For those of us who cherished the carefree 1990s and early 2000s glory days, Adidas’s heartfelt return to Newcastle was sure to please, and it does not let us down.
This is evidence that stripes do not require much work; simply make sure they are the right thickness and width, provide space on the back for the players’ names and numbers to be sufficiently visible, and you are good to go.
The black sleeves mean that, of the Adidas kits of yore, this probably most resembles the 2002 shirt, sported by your Alan Shearers, Craig Bellamys and Laurent Roberts.
With its elegant, simple typeface and design, Sela, the primary sponsor, is so good that you might momentarily forget it is a division of the Saudi Public Investment Fund.
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We would like to extend our sincere congratulations to Brentford for sticking to their tradition of only releasing one new uniform per season. This throwback strategy is probably meant to help them distinguish apart from the other teams that are always eager to show off to their supporters.
As a result, they will be wearing the same home uniform as the previous campaign. Although it is unfortunate, we will overlook this one time.
Well done Brentford.
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These days, everyone connected to Aston Villa appears to be content with their lives. Even the sale of Moussa Diaby, who was so captivating in the first half of the previous campaign, appears to have been welcomed as the astute move of a rational football team.
It makes sense that when this kit was introduced, everyone was extra happier. It is amazing that Adidas was able to create a uniform for a team that they had never designed before without the uniform looking strange or out of place.
The clever choice is to have a lighter shade of blue on the sleeves than in some past seasons, as this helps the maroon stripes stand out even more. It is a nice little touch that the collar’s pattern also pays homage to the one worn when Villa won the European Cup in 1982, unless I am very wrong.
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The solid block dark blue sleeves are an unusual choice for Tottenham, given that in the last competitive game they wore this design, half the team spent more time in the restroom than on the field. You have to assume that this was not Nike’s first thought when designing this shirt. That was back in 2006, and the match in question was the notorious “lasagne” match against West Ham, in which a large number of their players had contracted food illness.
Aside from the potentially fatal stomach acid reminders, this is a really nice-looking shirt that is bold and clean. The sponsor’s bright red logo actually enhances the design rather than detracts from it, though it could probably use a smaller font size. The shorts are dark blue instead of white, which is appropriate.
Yes, yes and yes. Just be careful that everything you eat is cooked through properly.
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When teams don their new uniforms for the final game of the previous campaign, it can be easy to forget that it is their new uniform. Since I have already seen it in motion, I genuinely spent a few minutes looking for Liverpool’s new shirt, but I just assumed that this was not it. Which is not so much a criticism of the kit itself—it is a testament to my deteriorating abilities.
Even though it might be a little difficult, the Premier League or the FA ought to enact legislation requiring Liverpool to always wear a yellow or gold accent on their uniforms while they work out the financial regulations or adjust VAR to make it appear as though it makes even a tiny difference to that gloomy blight on the game.
This outfit has just the right amount of everything, plus the collar is great and the disjointed pinstripes look good. Bravo to all those that took part.
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(Photos: Getty Images/Design: Dan Goldfarb)
