Things to note from the weekend just gone:
- Crystal Palace used their home socks with the white third shirt and shorts at Stamford Bridge
- Everton went blue-white-blue for the first time this season in their game at Southampton
- Aston Villa’s green goalkeeper kit made a first appearance
- And Manchester City played in their sky-blue alternative home socks for the first time – presumably this was to avoid a clash with Liverpool’s registered first-choice set, but the Reds seem to have abandoned the ‘dressage’ look, having used solid socks for the last three games in all competitions, two of them at home
As usual, we have the updated Away Kits Table from Matt Smith:
This week’s scores:
Watford 3
Crystal Palace 3
West Ham 3
Bournemouth 3
Everton 3
Sheffield United 1
Arsenal 1
Brighton 3
Aston Villa 3
Manchester City 1
We can’t get too annoyed with Arsenal, they’ve changed against teams who wear blue shirts and white shorts for decades.
With white stripes and dark shorts, Sheffield United didn’t do enough to claim maximum points at Tottenham. No VAR required to prove that some alternative red shorts would be a good addition to their kit cupboard.
Palace’s choice to provide a direct opposite to their hosts Chelsea was an interesting one. You half expected to see Pele and Michael Caine to lead a spirited comeback in an outfit last seen as they made an Escape to Victory.
You can only think Manchester City changed to sky blue socks because they presumed Liverpool would be in their silly ‘half-white’ versions. Then again, you’d have to guess that clubs are aware of what each other plan to wear so someone messed up. Unfortunately we only praise/penalise away sides here.
I have a vague memory (might be wrong, though) that over the past few years Arsenal have worn their away kit wherever possible in early November, so the poppy shows up better on the shirt (which it doesn’t on their home kit). Have a feeling Arsenal wore an unnecessary away kit this time of year a few seasons back, and that was the official reason why.
In my opinion :
Arsenal 0, no excuse for no wearing red/white. Even white short clash wouldn’t bother me, they have red change short (that they’d wear only in Europa League).
Also, even Manchester City didn’t need to change socks, sky blue socks look good and i even wonder if it shouldn’t have been default.