Premier League, Match Day 5 – Kit Review – Football Kit Geek

The Premier League is now in full flow, the recent weekend (15th – 17th September) or known as “Match Day 5” in some corners has now been and gone with no great surprises in terms of results but did give us some interesting talking points in terms of kits, so lets dive in and have look at some of the kit talking points in more detail.

Fulham – 4th Kit of the season

There is only one place to start and that is Fulham who wore their 4th different kit of the season and in fact it has been 4 kits in 4 games, quite possibly a record within the Premier League era.

This run of kits started with the introduction of a red third kit in the game against Tottenham Hotspur at Wembley Stadium on 18th August 2018. This kit was no surprise giving that a change was needed with Fulham’s home and away kits not providing a contrast to Tottenham’s current home kit. This was not a new kit but last season’s third kit, updated with this season’s shirt sponsor.

In the next game, Fulham’s home game against Burnley played on 26th August 2018 there was no surprise that they would play in their traditional White shirts / Black shorts / White socks combination.

The next game, away at Brighton and Hove Albion on 1st September 2018 is the one that took the our little kit world by surprise, again as with the game against Spurs, Fulham’s home and away kits would potentially cause a clash with the blue and white stripes worn by Brighton but assumption would be that the red 3rd kit would then make an appearance providing an adequate alternative, however in this game they wore last season’s black away shirt with this season’s home shorts and socks, providing them with a 4th kit for the 2018/19 season.

This brings us to this past week (15th September 2018), where Fulham away at Champions Manchester City would see the first appearance of their new navy blue away kit, however the full away kit was not worn it was paired with what appears to be the home socks, the registered socks with their away kit this season are also navy blue.

I am unaware of a reason behind the choice of kits, particularly in the Brighton game but it creates good conversation and debate around this and football kits, for me a simple Kit Geek this is indeed a wonderful thing.

Crystal Palace – New 3rd Kit

As expected when Crystal Palace visited Huddersfield Town this season we would need to see an alternative to their Home and Away kits, this was launched at the weekend with a fantastic all yellow kit, with a faded red / blue stripe running down the centre of the shirt.

With the additional of this kit, I believe Crystal Palace have one of the best set of kits in the Premier League this season.

Away kit variations

Another area of the world of kits that I enjoy is those variations within a team’s kit, different shorts and socks worn with each kit. This weekend we saw six different variations for team’s kits, West Ham United and Arsenal wore variations of their home kits. Fulham (which we have already discussed), Manchester United, Cardiff City and Brighton & Hove Albion all wore variations of their away kits.

West Ham’s home kit combined with sky blue shorts and socks, is one that really works for me and a variation that I like to see on the pitch.

Manchester United wore their pink away kit for the second time game in a row and for the second time varied from the Pink – Black – Pink combination, this time surprisingly wearing white shorts with the Pink shirts and socks. I was surprised that when moving from the registered black shorts that they did use pink shorts as an alternative but the white seemed to work okay as a contrast.