EPL – Page 17 – Football Kit Geek

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.

Plenty of discussion points from this week’s Premier League fixtures in terms of Kits, let me know your thoughts on this.

Premier League, Kit Log – Match Day 2

Aug 22, 2018Aug 22, 2018Posted in Premier League Kit LogTagged EPL, Football, Football Kits, Kit Geek, Kit Log, Kits, Premier LeagueLeave a comment

We are now two games into the 2018/19 Premier League Season and based on what happened in the World Cup with the number of Countries using there both Home and Away in the opening games (World Cup Kit Log, Group Stage Round 2), I thought it would be a good time to look at the kits worn this season so far.

The Kit Log….

Surprisingly (well maybe just for me) we have seen 30 home kits worn out of a possible 40 kits from the first 20 games and of these 30 kits, 29 have been the full home kit with no variation, the only team to wear a variation of their home kit… Arsenal wore red socks when playing Chelsea on 18th August.

Kit Breakdown after Match Day 2:

Home – 75% (29 Full kits, 1 Variation – Arsenal)

Away – 12.5% (4 Full kits, 1 Variation – Burnley)

3rd – 12.5% (5 Full kits)

As we approach Match Day 3, there are 10 teams that have worn two different kits so far, will any of these make it 3 kits in 3 games…. West Ham United are likely to based on their fixture away at Arsenal and having not used their blue away kit yet.

Overall my initial feelings of the kits on show have been great, I always prefer to see a kit in action before passing any judgement but 2018/19 feels like a good season…. and my favourite kit so far…. Manchester City Away, worn against Arsenal on 12th August.

Any thoughts about what we have seen so far this season, let me know?

Premier League Kit Log – Kit Variations

May 15, 2018May 15, 2018Posted in Premier League Kit LogTagged EPL, Football, Football Kits, Premier League1 Comment

When compiling my Kit Log of the 2017/18 Premier League season (check it out here – Premier League Kit Log ) one thing that became clear to me was the amount of variations in the kits that were used, so I started keeping track of the different variations of kits being used by each team.

As mentioned in my previous post, there were 95 variations of kits used in 17/18 Season, this does include those teams that launched their 2018/19 kits (Everton, Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea).

The Teams – Kits are in chronological order of when they first worn

Arsenal to Chelsea

Crystal Palace to Manchester City

Manchester United to Stoke City

Swansea to West Ham United

Looking at this, four teams did not use any variation of their three choices of kit (Two for Watford), these were Leicester City, Liverpool, Manchester City, Swansea and of these only Leicester City and Swansea wore the three kits, as Liverpool and Manchester City both wore 2018/19 Home kits in their final home games.

The teams with the most variation are Manchester United and West Ham United, each turning out in SEVEN variations of kits (Both having 3 Home, 2 Away and 2 3rd Kit variations). Everton also used seven variations of kits but this does include the 2018/19 Home kit

Brighton and Hove Albion initially launched their yellow away kit with black socks and for its first two appearances wore this combination but the kit was used a further 14 times with yellow socks, giving us the largest volume of kit variation used. Brighton also used alternative kits the most times, 17 of the 19 away games, although their 3rd kit was only used once against Chelsea. The two away games that they did not change, Watford in August and Liverpool on the final day of the season, 260 days between these two games.

Tottenham Hotspur registered a 3rd Kit (Purple camouflage) however this did not make an appearance in the League, so was the only shirt of the 59 registered with the Premier League that was not used, Burnley wore their 3rd shirt with their home shorts and socks in Arsene Wenger’s final game at The Emirates Stadium, so this full 3rd kit was not worn (it was the away kit from 2016/17 season).

Watford often got criticised for the amount of time they wore their away kit (9 times), when you look at other clubs is not much different in terms of usage however the question of whether they should of worn it in some of the games is up for debate but we live in times where clubs need to make their money, so I do not begrudge them of this, however if this was a more pleasing kit to eye then it might of helped.

Anything jump out to you in the way teams used their kits, let me know?

Premier League Kit Log – END OF SEASON UPDATE

May 14, 2018May 15, 2018Posted in Premier League Kit LogTagged EPL, Football, Premier League2 Comments

We’ve made it, we are there…. 380 games completed, 20 teams with 59 kits between them and 95 variations of those kits worn a total of 760 times (but more about that later)….

On Sunday 13th May saw the 2018/19 season come to a close, with Manchester City breaking all kinds of records on the pitch but what we are interested in looking at here is who wore what when, so Ladies and Gents, I give the Premier League 2018/19 completed Kit Log…. enjoy!

To make it easier to view, I have broken it down into four sections, 10 teams in alphabetical order in each section and looking at Matches 1-19 and Matches 20-38.

Arsenal to Liverpool, Matches 1 to 19

Arsenal to Liverpool, Matches 20 to 38

Manchester City to West Ham United, Matches 1 to 19

Manchester City to West Ham United, Matches 20 to 38

Looking at some of the kit stats:

Home Kits – 552 used, 73% (65% full home kit, 8% home kit variations)

Away Kits – 134 used, 17% (14% full away kit, 3% away kit variations)

3rd Kits – 74 used,10% (8% full 3rd kits, 2% 3rd kit variations)

I will be following this post up in the next days looking at the variations of kits used in more detail.

Oh and my favourite kit of season, the variation used by Southampton at Newcastle United, red shorts, red socks worn but also changed the back of the shirt to make it solid red as well to avoid a clash, a real one for us Kit Geeks out there…..

Premier League Kit Log – 30 Game Update

Mar 13, 2018Mar 13, 2018Posted in Premier League Kit LogTagged EPL, Football, Football Kits, Kit Geek, Kits, Premier League, SoccerLeave a comment

Monday 12th March, has now seen each club in the Premier League hit the 30 game barrier for the 2017/18 season and here is the an update on the kits worn so far this season….