The usual heavy schedule over Christmas, with games just before and just after the ringing in of the new year. As usual, Matt Smith’s remarks are noted with MS.
Gameweek 20
Saturday, December 29
Brighton & Hove Albion 1 Everton 0
Fulham 1 Huddersfield Town 0
MS: The Terriers’ away shirt looks great from the front, less so on the reverse, which is plain black. The whole strip would also be much better if it had white shorts – 1) to avoid clashes as at Craven Cottage, 2) to look less like Bournemouth at first glance.
Leicester City 0 Cardiff City 1
Tottenham Hotspur 1 Wolves 3
MS: Wolves appear to have stumbled across the Holy Grail: a lucky item of kit. This win at Wembley made it three unbeaten in alternative gold shorts, which makes it mystifying why they didn’t use them earlier at places like Old Trafford.
Watford 1 Newcastle United 1
Liverpool 5 Arsenal 1
Sunday, December 30
Crystal Palace 0 Chelsea 1
Burnley 2 West Ham United 0
Another new West Ham variation, with the blue shorts – which have already appeared with the first-choice kit – paired with the third shirt.
Burnley captain Tom Heaton replaced Joe Hart in goal and opted for long sleeves.
Southampton 1 Manchester City 3
MS: City creating a dark shorts clash rather than wearing the home strip with the alternative white socks was infuriating. It’s to be expected though as they’ll need to wear their change strips somewhere because they can’t at teams who don blue.
Manchester United 4 Bournemouth 1
Tuesday, January 1
Everton 0 Leicester City 1
Arsenal 4 Fulham 1
Finally, more than halfway through the season, Fulham wore their change kit as intended.
Cardiff City 0 Tottenham Hotspur 3
In the midweek just gone, Chelsea wore all-blue at Wembley in the Carabao Cup, having worn yellow there in the league.
Martin Tyler said that PL regulations had forced that change, but they had no problem with such a combination here.
Wednesday, January 2
Bournemouth 3 Watford 3
Chelsea 0 Southampton 0
Huddersfield Town 1 Burnley 2
Tom Heaton continuing to make his presence felt – another win and the first appearance of the orange Burnley goalkeeper kit, with Hart having preferred yellow when green was unavailable.
West Ham United 2 Brighton & Hove Albion 2
Another instance of Brighton wearing their third kit rather than the green second – seeking better contrast or better luck?
Wolverhampton Wanderers 0 Crystal Palace 2
A home defeat was proof that Wolves need to go all gold, all the time.
Newcastle United 0 Manchester United 2
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer the first Manchester United manager since Sir Matt Busby to win his first four games in charge.
Busby was also the manager – caretaker, after Wilf McGuinness was sacked – when United last won a game in red shirts, white shorts and red socks, back in 1971.
Thursday, January 3
Manchester City 2 Liverpool 1
A great game between the two best teams, both in home kits, officials in black, one goalkeeper in yellow and the other in green. Lovely.
