Crystal Palace – Page 2 – Football Kit Geek

Premier League: Matchweek 21 Kit Review

Jan 23, 2024Posted in General, Kit News, Premier League Kit LogTagged Adidas, Arsenal, Aston Villa, Brentford, Castore, Crystal Palace, England, EPL, Football, Football Kits, Kit Geek, Kit Log, Kits, Liverpool, Manchester United, Nottingham Forest, Premier League, Soccer5 Comments

Matchweek 21 is a unique Matchweek in the Premier League season, with the fixtures being split over two weekends to give each of the teams a mini “mid-season” winter break, there was five fixture played over the weekend of 12th to 14th January and the remaining five fixtures on 20th to 22nd January.

As always you can find last week Matchweek’s review – here

The current Kit Overview for Premier League is below, we now have all 60 shirts released… still waiting for confirmation of the shorts that will be used with Luton Town’s 3rd.

Matchweek 21 Fixtures

Total Kits Used

Kits Worn in Total – 91 (+2 from Matchweek 20)
Goalkeeper Kits – 57 (No Change from Matchweek 20)

New Kits this Matchweek

There were two new kit look on show through these fixtures.

Crystal Palace have worn their 3rd twice already this season, including the opening fixture back in August, however this is the first time that the kit has been worn in default look of all black, with the black socks getting the debut outing!

Nottingham Forest used their 3rd Kit with bespoke alternative orange shorts and socks for the first time this season in their game against Brentford, the overall look worked well with amount of orange in the shirt… a nice alternative and opens up more opportunities for mix and matching with the default navy blue shorts and socks.

Kit Highlights

Manchester United “Sock Watch”, it was the 2023 Adidas Teamwear socks again in the home game against Tottenham Hotspur, this seems to be the go to sock now for The Red Devils…

Wolverhampton Wanderers wore their away kit for only the second time this season and the first time since the third game of the season back in August against Everton, this also means they have worn Home, Away and 3rd Kits in their last three games!

My favourite Kit Match Up of this week was the match up between Brentford and Nottingham Forest, the alternative look against the classic Brentford kit worked well for me, I have seen comments that considered this to be a kit clash but I think there is enough destinction between the light and dark shorts and socks and in the shirts that this worked well under the lights of Gtech Community Stadium!

Kit Stats

Overall we have seen 14 Home Kits, 3 Away Kits and 3 3rd Kits in action in this Matchweek

There were four Kit Variation on show this week.

Luton Town, Away Kit with Home Shorts and Socks, this is the 3rd time this look has been used
Manchester United’s again in Black Teamwear Socks (with updated Adidas Logo), the 8th time they have been worn
Aston Villa, Home Kit with alternative claret shorts and socks, the 2nd time for this look
Nottingham Forest’s 3rd Kit with alternative shorts and socks (see above)

Kit Grid – Up to 23rd January 2024

Kit News

It is being widely reported that Aston Villa have signed “Major” Deal with Adidas, replacing Castore from next season. Aston Villa have been supplied by the many kit manufacturers over the years, however this would be the first time that they have worn the “Three Stripes” of Adidas and will be the second club to move from Castore to Adidas with Newcastle United also making that change from 2024/25 Season – Image from @TheShirtUnion

Manchester City have released a “Year of the Dragon” shirt to celebrate the Chinese New Year and it has been reported that this kit will be worn by both Men and Women’s teams at some point this season, with the kit having its own designed nameset I wonder if it will be a cup game that we see this kit, however with the Men away at Tottenham Hotspur in the 4th Round, its not likely to be that game.

Another interesting story that was being report at the end of last week was the potential introduction of “4th” Kits from 2024/25 season. It is not clear if this will be for every team but the reports suggested that one of Arsenal, Liverpool, Newcastle United, Manchester United, Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur or Chelsea will have a 4th Kit available for regular use and not seen as a “Special Kit”.

So what we have seen with Crystal Palace and Arsenal this season may become the norm in future season within Premier League!

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below or at @Kit_Geek

Premier League – Matchweek 16

Premier League – Matchweek 17

Premier League – Matchweek 18

Premier League – Matchweek 19

Premier League – Matchweek 20

Something new for 2024 is my Facebook Page, which you can find here so please give have a look and give me a follow / like.

FA Cup: 3rd Round, Kit Review

Jan 9, 2024Jan 18, 2024Posted in General, Kit History, Kit NewsTagged Arsenal, Crystal Palace, EFL, England, EPL, FA Cup, Football, Football Kits, Kit Geek, Kit Log, Kits, Liverpool, Manchester City, Premier League, Soccer2 Comments

The FA Cup 3rd Round, one of the highlights of the Football Season for many of us, the round that sees teams from the Premier League and Championship join the competition, often with several “Non-League” teams still involved, the dreams and hope of a New Year replicated into Footballing dreams both big and small!

In it’s 143rd season, the oldest competition in Football initially had 732 teams enter with qualifying rounds starting back in the summer of 2023, with 32 teams from these fixtures reaching the first round, where the EFL Teams first join the Competition.

A recap of the previous rounds…

1st Round

1st Round Replays

2nd Round

2nd Round Replays

The 3rd Round of The FA Cup took place over 5 days of the first weekend of 2024, between Thursday 4th January and Monday 8th January, the fixture between Crystal Palace and Everton the first to be played on Thursday of this weekend!

3rd Round Kit Log

64 Teams kicked off the 3rd Round in 32 Fixtures.

3rd Round Replays

There were 14 different Kit Manufacturers seen in this round of the FA Cup, with Macron having the most teams with 11 and Umbro with 10, the only two with double figures… four Kit Makers, Kappa, Kelme, New Balance (all Championship Clubs) and VX3 (Newport County) with just one club.

Kit Highlights

Crystal Palace kicked off the 3rd Round of the FA Cup on Thursday by wearing a special charity / 4th shirt, containing a sash something that The Eagles are well known for doning on their kits over the years. This shirt was paired with Home shorts and socks and with Everton in their 3rd Kit, it made for one of my favourite Kit Match Ups of the season so far.

For the 3rd Season in a row Arsenal used an all white kit, labelled as “No More Red”, highlighting teenage knife attacks in London. The shirts will not be for release and will sold for charities supporting the local communities. This season is different as the previous incarnations were used away from The Emirates Stadium, at Nottingham Forest in 2022 and Oxford United in 2023, so this is a rare ccurrence of Arsenal not in red at Home, Liverpool joind the No More Red theme by wearing their 3rd Kit for a unique look for one of the historic fixtures in English Football!

Maidstone United the lowest team left in the competition, continued to the 4th Round with their victory against League One Stevenage, The National League South (6th Tier) Kent Team have a kit which is based in design on the final Maidstone United kit from 1992 before the club folded and withdraw from The Football League.

An interesting Kit Match up with the Tyne / Wear Derby, in recent years when the clubs have played each other change kits have been worn to avoid a clash, this was not the case in this FA Cup game, with Newcastle United wearing alternative white shorts and socks with their Home Shirt to give a more traditional look to this fixture, something that raised mixed views across Social Media with both those glad to see this and those that called it out as a kit clash!

Blackpool are the only team that have worn three different kit looks in the opening three rounds of the Competition, having worn all Tangerine Home Kit in their opening round against Bromley, then their default home with against Forest Green Rovers and their Away Kit against Nottingham Forest.

Manchester City had one difference in their kit from any of the other competing clubs… as they continue to not use the offical FA Cup sleeve patches, due to the current sponsors of the competition, they do not use the patches as it is direct competition to their own principle sponsor. It is likely, as in previous seasons that will be fined for this action but that does not stop them! It also means the holders patch (which is silver not red) will not be seen this season.

Being a Cup competition meant that lots of clubs, introduced their own “Cup” Namesets instead of the standard league names and numbers that normally used, some stand out ones that we wanted to call out are the following…

Any of your FA Cup hightlights that I have missed or stand out, let me know your thoughts in the comments below or at @Kit_Geek

Something new for 2024 is my Facebook Page, which you can find here so please give have a look and give me a follow / like.

Premier League: Matchweek 1 Kit Review

Aug 15, 2023Aug 22, 2023Posted in General, Kit History, Kit News, Premier League Kit LogTagged Aston Villa, Brighton, Crystal Palace, England, EPL, Football, Football Kits, Kit Geek, Kit Log, Kits, Premier League, Soccer, Spurs5 Comments

And we are off….

The 2023 / 24 Premier League Season has now kicked off and as mentioned here I will be taking a more in depth look into the Kits each Matchweek from my usual update via Social Media.

The current Kit Overview for Premier League is below, we have seen 50 out of the 60 Kits released so far…

Matchweek 1 Fixtures

Total Kits Used

Kits Worn in Total – 20
Goalkeeper Kits – 20

New Kits this Matchweek

Of course all kits this week are being used for the first time this season, more details will appear in this section as we move through the season and new kit looks / variations are used.

Kit Highlights

The New Premier League Namesets got their first full outings and visually worked well I believe, they certainly appeared to be a lot bigger and clearer than their predecessors, so a thumbs up from me on those changes (apart from the bespoke colours, I would still love to see more colour options available to teams).

There were two Kit Mash ups used in the opening weekend of fixtures…

Firstly Crystal Palace who combined their 3rd Kit with their white Away Kit Socks, this look giving two shades of Blue on the kit, with the lighter shade of blue being used with the Away Kit this season.

The second Mash Up was with Tottenham Hotspur, who not only launched their beautiful Navy Blue Away Kit this weekend, they then used it at Brentford with Home Socks (White)

There was a potentially a third Kit Mash Up used with Aston Villa using alternative “Claret” Socks to their trip to Newcastle United, however we do not know what their 3rd kit looks like, so not sure if this is a mash up or just use of alternative home socks, my feeling is this will be an alternative sock but time will tell!

Some more investigation is needed on Brighton & Hove Albion’s Goalkeeper Kit, the black kit worn by Jason Steele this weekend which appears to be same black kit used in the 2022/23 Season, its been difficult to get a clear image of the kit to be 100% certain… so watch this space about this one!

Kit Stats

Overall we have seen 15 Home Kits (12 default and 1 variations), 4 Away Kits (3 default and 1 variation) and just the one 3rd kit used in these opening games

Kit Grid – Up to 15th August

Kit News

In the coming week we expect to see the lauch of Arsenal’s 3rd Kit which has been well documented as a return to the green / navy sleeves, which is rumoured to launched on Friday 18th August 2023.

That is this Premier League Matchweek Kit Review, 10 games down… 370 to go!!

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below or at @Kit_Geek and Matchweek 2 Review will be published after next weekend’s games.

Premier League, Match Day 5 – Kit Review

Sep 17, 2018Posted in Premier League Kit LogTagged Crystal Palace, EPL, Football, Fulham, Kit Geek, Kits, Manchester United, Premier LeagueLeave a comment

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.