A complete review of every Premier League team’s away and third kits so far – from Crystal Palace’s gorgeous effort to Burnley’s eyesore.
In an age when every football hipster has a collection of vintage Serie A shirts to call their own, kit manufacturers have every reason to up their game, knowing that a particularly gorgeous effort will be flying off the shelves for years to come. All of which makes it something of a shame that this year’s collection of home kits – which my colleague Jason Jones has already picked over – is a bit… well… bland.
Is anyone going to be wearing a 2023/24 West Ham home kit 20 years from now? No. They’ll stick to the old Julian Dicks-approved shoulder stripes from the Nineties, and rightly so. But there’s still the away kits, the third kits, the special-edition change strips that Arsenal churn out every other week – and this is the space for innovation and wild ideas, a design space where anything goes. So what did the kit manufacturers of the world come up with, and who will be cutting the biggest dash on their travels in the coming campaign? Let’s take a look at all of the Premier League change kits revealed so far…
Arsenal Away Kit
Presumably created after a designer spent an evening studying contour lines on an Ordnance Survey map while tripping heartily on magic mushrooms, this is a unique medley of road safety-conscious high-vis and retina-searing psychedelia. To be fair to whoever came up with this, the return to fashion of the bucket hat does also suggest the return to fashion of acid house clobber more broadly, and this wouldn’t have been out of place at the Haçienda. For those of us who prefer our heads unadorned and are too old for all that rave stuff, however, it’s fairly hard to look at.
Aston Villa
Away Kit
A classy cream effort rather spoiled by the incongrous clash between the top and the claret and blue shorts. The little flash of pale blue on the neckline doesn’t work either. This is what happens when someone presents a good idea to the boardroom and everyone else has to add their own idea. If the blue was exorcised, it would be a strong four stars. As is… it just doesn’t work.
Bournemouth
Away Kit
What in the gibbering wreck of society is this? Let’s start with the pale, gray-blue colour straight from the more untroubled regions of the Dulux paint chart, which is horrible, and swiftly move onto what I can only assume was a collaboration with the local police based on asking local ne’er-do-wells to provide their fingerprints for both future investigations and a football shirt. Appropriately enough, this kit is criminal.
Brentford
Away Kit
No change from last year for the Bees, for which the club deserve immense credit. That they aren’t willing to gouge their fans for every last penny almost makes us forgive the sheer blandness of a kit whose colour falls somewhere between wilted mint green and toothpaste blue.
Third Kit
Helpfully modelled by what is either a hot new boyband or a collection of contestants who have been booted out of Love Island, this kit and its accompanying launch video spits in the face of the very concept of epilepsy. Despite the likelihood of seizures in the stands, I quite like it. It’s certainly lively.
Brighton & Hove Albion
Away Kit
Whether the nod to coach Roberto Di Zerbi’s days in charge of Sassuolo was intentional or not, this is a really rather spiffing effort, which is just a set of black shorts and perhaps a slightly darker shade of green away from the top tier of this year’s change strips. The collar and sleeve trim are a lovely touch. Not a classic, but Brighton has more than enough hipsters to ensure that some middle aged men will be sat sipping IPA in this number in a decade or so.
Burnley
Away Kit
I should begin this review by confessing my bias – I am a Blackburn Rovers fan, and am as such conditioned to vomit at the very sight of all Burnley kits. That being said, I would be feeling pretty queasy regardless of who I supported right now – this is a stone cold stinker. “Sickly yellow offset with a thick brown streak” is unlikely to be top of any fashionista’s wishlist, and the weird fizzy effect down the sides of the stripe simply make everything even worse. Heinous.
Chelsea
Given that Chelsea haven’t even found a shirt sponsor yet, it is perhaps unsurpiring that they haven’t gotten round to releasing any of their change kits. You can however, go to their online store and buy from their club-branded Hawaiian shirt range, and whatever their away day clobber looks like, it definitely can’t be any worse than that.
Crystal Palace
Away Kit
Crystal Palace have quietly churned out quite a few of the very best kits of the last few years, and their latest change kit is another absolute humdinger. It looks like an ode to a forgotten Argentinian team of the Eighties. The blue is perfect, the collar gorgeous. Genuinely, no notes. I adore it. Give the ladies and gentlemen of Macron a round of applause and a pay rise.
Everton
Away Kit
