As well as being an impressive response to last season’s Champions final defeat, Saturday’s win at Chelsea was notable from a kit point of view for Manchester City.
In recent times, City have been reluctant to wear alternative shorts in the Premier League, which doesn’t have a rule stipulating that shorts-clashes should be solved. There have, however, been rare occasions where – presumably at the behest of the referee – they have changed so as to play in their home shirts against sides in royal blue.
The 2015-16 game at Everton was an example – the home shorts from the previous season were used – and the game last weekend saw them switch to white change shorts.
As with many of the unworn sets from the last few years, those white shorts can be bought in the club shop – confusingly, they are in the away kit section but perhaps that’s because they look so similar to the shorts of the all-white second kit.
The change strip has “iridescent accents, marking the launch of new clean water programs by the club’s charity initiative Cityzens Giving”, so it would be churlish for us to say that we’d have preferred if the markings were the same blue as the home kit, allowing for easy interchangeability.
The first proper outing for the away shirt was in the Community Shield against Leicester City, who have white home shorts this season, meaning that Pep Guardiola’s side wore bluey-green shorts (with the clock-radio number font they have for cup competitions this season).
However, when they travelled to the King Power Stadium to face Leicester in the league on September 11, their 1-0 (reversing the Community Shield outcome) saw the all-white look on show.
What baffles me is that Man City took to wearing white shorts at Chelsea to provide contrast because of Chelsea’s blue shorts and yet the shirt (first matter to resolve in a kit clash) didn’t get changed. Ridiculous if you ask me.