Numerical limitations

Tuesday night will see the first of this year’s Carabao Cup finalists decided as Arsenal take on Chelsea in their semi-final second leg.

We would expect Chelsea to be in their default kit at Emirates Stadium; while the Gunners have often had white socks since Nike reintroduced the look – for the first time in three decades – in 1996, red sets seem to have regained supremacy during Mikel Arteta’s tenure.

The last time the clubs met in the last four of the League Cup, in 1997-98, Chelsea actually opted to wear their yellow change strip in the first leg at Highbury.

A 2-1 loss for the visitors proved to be Ruud Gullit’s last game in charge – by the time of the second leg, which the Blues, back in blue, won 3-1, Gianluca Vialli was in charge.

He would lead them to glory in the final against Middlesbrough as well as in the European Cup Winners’ Cup that season, beating Stuttgart. Of course, entry to the continental competition had come thanks to the 1997 FA Cup final win – also against Boro, as it happens – and we wonder if the semi-final of that competition was the basis for choice of kit against Arsenal.

Up against fellow London side Wimbledon at the penultimate stage, Highbury was the venue and both teams were in change kits.

It felt like something of an anachronism as the rule requiring both teams to change when a clash arose in the semi-finals or final had been ignored rather than adhered to far more often in the years preceding – in addition, this was the period when Wimbledon were still prevented from wearing navy in the domestic cups as the officials’ black outfits still took precedence.

In any case, the yellow strip helped Chelsea to a 3-0 triumph to take them to Wembley – and it’s not unreasonable to think that Gullit wanted to channel those good vibes the following season.

As you can see, while the design was the same, there were two notable differences between the 1996-97 and 1997-98 iterations of the kit.

Coors had been replaced as sponsors by Autoglass in the summer of 1997 and that new season also brought the introduction of the league-wide font in the Premiership.

That situation still pertains – we are now on to the fourth generation – but, despite the changes, something that hasn’t been altered is the limited number of colour options.

For our money, the blue Umbro set in 1996-97 is better than the black that had to be used a year later but even now, teams are not always able to match the digits on the back with the colours of a particular kit. France, Italy and Spain all have common league fonts but there is a lot more variety in terms of available shades – surely the richest league in the world could do the same?