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Chelsea’s divisively brilliant home kit tops our Premier League rankings with Liverpool last

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Liverpool players and Chelsea defender Reece James

We’ve ranked all 20 Premier League home kits for 2024/25 and, fair warning, we’re already doubting ourselves about top spot. We genuinely couldn’t decide whether it should be first or 20th – all we knew for sure was that it was definitely one of the two.

Elsewhere there are some quite bad efforts from some quite big teams, while Crystal Palace have produced another banger, West Ham do cloying nostalgia just right, and Everton issue a desperate cry for help by switching to Castore in 2024.

Enjoy.

 

20. Liverpool
Yes, we can see that the collar is a nod to that old Liverpool kit that had a big collar and always makes us think of Robbie Fowler. But here’s the thing: that collar was also sh*t. If you’re going to do nods to old kits or bits of kits then do so by all means. We’re fans of it. You can even do retro nods to sh*t bits, as long as you don’t repeat the mistake of making them sh*t.

Shame, because the rest of this is fine. Good, even. But we cannot see past the sheer daftness of the collar.

Liverpool players line up before a friendly against Real Betis

Liverpool players line up before a friendly against Real Betis

 

19. Manchester City
Christ. Our only hope here is that ‘telephone area code’ marks such a pitiful low point, such an overtly and unashamed scraping of the worn-through bottom of a sh*tty barrel, that it brings to an end now and forevermore the desperate need some clubs and manufacturers seemingly have to try and pretend their kits are some deep and meaningful love letter to the town or city they represent.

It’s a shame, because City’s Hacienda-inspired kits mark one of the very few times this idea has felt real and natural. This is just desperate sh*te, though, and no amount of tongue-in-cheek social content can save it. It just looks very much to us like someone trying to pretend they were joking all along.

The 0161 area code didn’t even exist until 1995, although we suppose that does give it a far longer history of success than City.

 

18. Brentford
If we were a football club embarking on a noble and admirable mission to re-normalise the idea that a kit can last two seasons, we simply would not do so with something this drab. The colour fade to the waist that didn’t work when Man United or Tottenham tried it hasn’t worked for Brentford either, with the added pisser that it leaves them this season as the only umbro kit not featuring the updated centenary logo, which seems an unnecessary shame.

Ivan Toney celebrates his goal for Brentford against Nottingham Forest.

Ivan Toney celebrates his first goal since returning from suspension.

 

17. Everton
It’s not the only or even the biggest clue to Everton’s general state of ill-health, but moving from hummel to Castore as your kit supplier given all we know has to go down as a massive cry for help.

The kit itself is inoffensive enough, and the collar is quite good fun, but it’s Castore and thus, as with Everton themselves, we have significant reservations about the underlying quality given the well-known issues of recent years.

We do very much like the socks, with their bold ‘EFC’ branding and continuation of the striped collar. But come on. Moving to Castore? In big 2024? Just no.

 

16. Fulham
Meh. ‘Salright. There’s nothing wrong with it. There’s not one element we could point to as being wrong or upsetting or getting in the way. It’s all perfectly adequate and it’s all suitably Fulham and we really like the red side cuts, but we remain huge fans of last season’s black sleeves with different coloured adidas stripes and miss them terribly here.

Where Fulham are lucky is in having a black shirtfront sponsor and red sleeve sponsor; not many teams can boast such ideal kit-blending sponsors.

 

15. Arsenal
First and most obviously, it’s an overwhelming yes to the stripped back cannon crest, one that instantly takes you back to the late 80s and George Graham before the unpleasantness and 1-0 to the Arsenal.

But while blue absolutely can be part of an Arsenal home kit – think of the ’91 title winners here – we do fear, alas, that Arsenal have too much of it here. It’s a very prominent tertiary colour on a kit that already has a very prominent secondary colour. Spurs and Arsenal both having too much blue on their home kit this season is a bit of fun, isn’t it?

No getting away from it, though. While we welcome the move away from last season’s OTT gold detailing, and we rather enjoy everything that’s going on with the collar, this just isn’t red enough an Arsenal shirt for our tastes. There’s a pleasing retro-yet-modern feel here, but as an overall effort it just doesn’t quite land.

The blue problem extends to the shorts, too, where it’s the secondary colour if anything and that surely can’t be right.

 

14. Manchester United
It’s not bad, but nor is it particularly memorable.

The side cuts that haven’t worked for everyone on this season’s adidas offerings do well enough here in a subtle red-on-red design, but we would always want to see at least a bit of black on a Man United home shirt. Doesn’t have to be much, but it does have to be there. Bit of piping, trim to the adidas stripes. Anything. It’s a clear step down from last season.

 

13. Leicester
Just a shrug of the shoulders in kit form. Were it not for the new sponsor and current adidas branding it would be absolutely impossible to state with any conviction that this was a new Leicester kit and not simply the same one they’d worn in any or indeed every season since 2018/19.

 

12. Southampton
We’re a bit sad about the lack of hummel in this season’s Premier League, we can’t lie. But at least Southampton haven’t gone full Everton because Puma is clearly a less mortifying choice than Castore.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with the traditional red-and-white-striped effort on display here, but it’s a kit that could just as easily be Brentford’s, isn’t it?

To be fair to Puma, they were probably on a hiding to nothing here whatever they did. Given Southampton’s last kit was a note perfect tribute to a late ’80s masterpiece, whatever Puma did this season was going to be a step down. Probably to their credit that they’ve accepted this and just delivered a meat-and-potatoes Southampton kit for their first, but we would want to see something a bit more creative next time.

 

11. Wolves
Getting rid of Castore was obviously necessary for anyone saddled with their kits last season, but moving to a new deal with a company owned by your club’s owners suggests a decision that might, ahem, not be made entirely with the club’s best interests at heart.

And the result is… okay? It’s not one of the best in the league, clearly, but nor is it the worst. We have a lot of time for a lack of symmetry in kits – your sashes and such – but we’re less keen on a lack of symmetry with the core elements. Maker’s name on one side but a central badge always just looks a bit muddled.

When applying our tried-and-tested approach of covering the club badge and deciding which club first comes to mind we also came up with Cambridge United, not Wolves. Can’t fully say why, but it’s a major failing for a kit if it brings the wrong club to mind. Especially with a distinctive and relatively rare colour scheme.

 

10. Bournemouth
The only unconfirmed kit left now where we must rely on leaks and tittle-tattle. Gold trim on a football shirt always makes us nervous because it’s tough to pull off, but Bournemouth and umbro appear to have got it just right here by restricting it to the 100-year anniversary umbro logo and the edges of some big bold stripes.

The uniformity and width of the stripes is an improvement on last season’s perfectly decent kit, where if we were to nitpick the black was a touch overpowering, but it’s not perfect. The club crest is slightly lost and looks deceptively small within one of the fat red stripes compared to last season where it popped on the black background and looked bigger for just ever so slightly escaping the confines of its stripe. Although we must also wait and see whether this crest will even be on the final shirt – their new crest has been on show for the special Michael B Jordan-designed kits they’ve worn during pre-season. What a time to be alive this truly is.

The collar here also appears to be entirely afterthought, and that simply won’t do for such a vital element of kit design.

 

9. Tottenham
Ah, the age-old Tottenham kit problem. Too much white one year, too much navy the next. The constant struggle to land upon exactly the right amount continues and Nike have not found it this time. Full blue sleeves doesn’t sit right for a Spurs kit, even though there is precedent from Kappa’s 2005/06 effort.

That kit, like this one, was actually a pretty smart looking set-up, but it just isn’t quite right for Spurs. We do think we’d rather see a bit too much navy than not enough, though, and there is at least no messing about with an unnecessary third colour here.

Buy beyond the problems of the delicate balance of Spurs’ two main colours, we have an additional problem with this kit. And that problem is that even the full eye-wateringly expensive player edition of the kit somehow looks like a set of kids’ pyjamas that have been based on it. Can we fully explain this? No. And we don’t have to.

 

8. Brighton
We spent the whole of last season getting a vague yet disconcerting ick from the lack of a central stripe on Brighton’ home kit so it’s with genuine delight we can report that Brighton’s 24/25 kit has a central stripe. We know you were all very concerned too.

It appears from what we’ve seen of it a pleasingly bright shirt, with the stripe-within-a-stripe fading from blue to white working unexpectedly well. Our views on colour fades to the waist are well known by now, but it definitely works far, far better in a stripe – especially one as thin as this – than across an entire midsection.

Brighton also have the advantage of a sponsor’s logo that sits unobtrusively on the kit, helping to give the shirt a tied-together feel that not everyone is fortunate enough to enjoy.

It’s much better than both last season’s and the yellow-tainted 22/23 effort, with the only minor quibbles a dull collar and just slightly teetering over the edge of the trap that all blue-and-white striped kits must avoid of giving off a Tesco Value vibe.

 

7. Nottingham Forest
It’s certainly more interesting than last season’s almost sarcastically plain offering but only just.

Not necessarily a criticism, though, because this is a clean, smart offering and the pattern within the material formed by two overlapping stars (representing their European Cup wins, obvs) is suitably unique and novel.

It’s almost impossible to pinpoint the difference between a boring and plain kit and a classily understated simple one, but that difference exists somewhere between Forest’s 23/24 and 24/25 efforts.

 

6. Ipswich
If you’ve been away from the Premier League for over two decades you’d want to come back with a decent kit, wouldn’t you?

Ipswich, having been away from the Premier League for over two decades, have definitely come back with a decent kit. It’s incredibly handsome.

Pinstripes are almost always welcome and especially so with Ipswich, who have a long and proud history with the pinstripe. The badge being contained within a really quite massive shield also works far better than might be expected, as does the little pop of red within that special centenary umbro logo.

We’re not normally fans of a very chunky collar, but umbro and Ipswich have craftily managed to avoid most of the potential pitfalls that come with it by going for a slightly darker blue rather than being tempted by white or red which would have been an unwelcome distraction from the overall feel. Excellent effort all round, this.

 

5. Newcastle
Adidas and Newcastle is a combination that just feels right, and let’s face it anything is an upgrade when you’ve been Castored for any period of time.

There is something uniquely and specifically appealing about black and white adidas stripes sitting on the sleeves of a black-and-white striped Newcastle shirt.

The specific layout of the stripes on this year’s kit, with white underarms, is a pretty clear nod to the 2002/03 ‘ntl’ shirt from adidas’ previous stint as Newcastle’s kit manufacturer. This is just a perfectly simple and simply perfect Newcastle home kit. No notes.

 

4. Aston Villa
Deserved a banger after last season’s wet-look Castore fiasco, and they’ve got it. We were slightly taken aback by the discovery that this is the first ever adidas Aston Villa kit because you just kind of assume everyone has had an adidas kit somewhere along the way, don’t you?

But it’s an excellent one. Adidas have, very correctly, deduced that a new manufacturer and a new club crest are more than enough novel elements and delivered an Aston Villa kit that does the one very important but surprisingly difficult thing an Aston Villa kit must do: by some unexplainable voodoo be instantly and very clearly an Aston Villa shirt and not one that could just as easily be Burnley or West Ham. Hard to explain how that’s been achieved here; it’s purely feels-based.

The collar is better than Arsenal’s similar one, and resisting a third colour or doing anything silly with the underarm means they’ve got a far better overall look than Arsenal despite the obvious design similarities.

 

3. West Ham
Oof, that’s the good stuff, isn’t it? There aren’t many clubs where retro is a bad idea, but few where it’s quite as good an idea as at West Ham.

One of the many valid concerns Hammers fans had with David Moyes was the fact he just didn’t fit with their own idea of themselves. Of what they are and what they represent. Do you know who did? Bobby Moore. And this is a kit apparently laser-focused on making West Ham fans think of Bobby Moore.

Everything about this kit is on point. The simplified crest they have now works perfectly here, especially with the inverted colour scheme. The collar and cuffs look great, and that centenary umbro logo has never looked better.

 

2. Crystal Palace
Yes. YES. Completely in love with this. Palace had brilliant kits a couple of years ago that appeared to have been coloured in by an overexcited toddler, but the perhaps inevitable response to that wild brilliance was to spend last season trundling around in an almost apologetically dull kit as some kind of entirely unnecessary penance. Just do the fun kits, lads. You’re smashing the fun kits.

This one is made up of all eagle motifs that form the red and blue stripes (which is also correct in itself after last season’s unwanted foray into half-and-half). It all looks a bit like one of those Magic Eye pictures from the ’90s, like if you stare at it long enough a great big eagle will appear in the middle. Something to think about there for next season, maybe? Or the one after that at least after next season’s “Sorry for being fun” mediocrity.

For now, though, hats off to Palace and Macron because this is excellent. Oh, and we know what you’re wondering. Does the eagle pattern extend into the shorts? You better believe the eagle pattern extends into the shorts. A triumph.

 

1. Chelsea
Clear winners in the always keenly-contested ‘marketing bumwash accompanying a kit launch’ contest thanks to this magnificent collection of words.

“The melting pot pattern, resembling liquid gold and silver, is a fusion of our rich legacy with the ever-hot youth culture within our city.”

Just something overwhelmingly cringe about that, and we think it’s the proximity of the (non) phrase ‘ever-hot’ with the words ‘youth culture’, which is always a phrase to set ‘how do you do, fellow kids?’ alarm bells ringing.

We’re going to shock you now, though. Heaven help us, we really like this kit. We fully reserve the right to do a complete 180 on it, because it is undeniably mad, but right now we’re really quite convinced it looks f***ing amazing.

Have we gone mad? Have we been hoodwinked by the fusion of a rich legacy with the ever-hot youth culture within their city? No. It’s brilliant. Definitely. We think.

It’s certainly very brave – or very foolish – to bring this kind of outlandish away-kit energy to a home kit and we should all at least admire that boldness.

The away kit feel to proceedings is increased by the metallic finish to the logos and badges, but the orange trim really does work well with the bold overall look.

We’re pretty sure we’re looking here at a kit with future cult status even if it might not be fully appreciated in its lifetime. Equally, it very well might just be quite sh*t. That’s what’s exciting about it.

Our get-out-of-jail-free card comes with the fact that, like last year’s kit, it’s been initially released sans sponsor because one of Todd Boehly’s clever ideas that he has is apparently to only confirm deals with sponsors at the very last minute. You wouldn’t understand because you’re not as clever as Mr Eight-Year Deals.

But we’re grateful here, because when the sponsor does appear we can pretend that’s what made us come to our senses. This is either the best shirt in the division or the worst and if you ask us tomorrow you might get a very different answer. But today it’s in top spot.



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