2017–18 Premier League Kits, Worst to First
Ranking uniforms? You know that’s a dumb, subjective and ultimately pointless exercise, right?

Still here? Of course you are.
The English Premier League’s 2017–18 season has commenced, and dozens of new jerseys are flying across fields and TV screens near you. The Premier League has a mix of classic, storied clubs attempting to honor their visual history, and clubs with, shall we say, less-globally-relevant brands, doing their best to look like they belong, and maybe even get themselves noticed. Every season, each team debuts at least two, and sometimes three or more, on-field uniforms. Often the set goes together thematically; often it does not. A few basic rules of thumb: the home uniform should respect a club’s established visual pedigree. The away jersey can vary significantly from year to year and play with convention (although there may be some history to reference from time to time). Third jerseys are an experimental playground, where visual risks are commonly taken.
Did I mention I began this exercise on Twitter a few days ago? What you’re about to read is that 140-character-at-a-time effort, spiced up with visuals and a little director’s commentary.
So 30 is a perfect score. 25 is excellent. 20 is fine. Anything below 17 is poor. Anything below 14 is the teacher writing “see me” on your test.
I mean, I’ll chime in with way more here. (If you just want the Twitter thread, that’s fine too. But you’ll miss a few killer dad jokes.)
🆗.
I learned after tweeting that the home kit references a classic Southampton jersey, which gives the look a bit more leeway. You’re not going to see a better (or less insane) kit-launch than this, either — which also helps a ton. I still don’t enjoy the fully filled-in v-neck. The loopy Virgin sponsor looks awkward. Under Armour can do some good work, and unlike some kit makers, they are comfortable plunging waist-deep into crazy. That impulse is obvious with the away kits. I still have no idea why the photographer told the guys to bust out their Drake moves during the shoot. The goalie actually looks like he’s channeling Justin Timberlake in a soup costume. Southampton is kind of bonkers.
Why is the crest so tiny? I love Watford’s angular, elk-enclosing shield. It should be twice as big. The home look is so unique and executed so well, it’s a shame that the club stumbled on the away kit and (apparently) didn’t make a third this year. The below-belly sash on the away already has plenty of issues; it reminds me of what you’d get if you asked a 9 year old to draw what a waiter at a fancy restaurant should wear. The facial expressions in the away photo shoot also crack me up. From left to right, “you, uh… you did what?”, “so I told the guy, get your own jumper cables!”, “would you like to hear tonight’s specials?”, “remember, dressing on the side this time” and “er, did you guys expect me to be the captain today?”
This sucks. Brighton is my team. I’ve suffered and exalted with them for years as they bounced around the lower divisions. They repeatedly missed promotion to the Premier League in excruciating ways over the past couple seasons. And then last spring, it just happened. (Goes to show things happen when it’s time, and rarely before. Stupid sports, cramming life lessons down my throat.) My club in the big time! Boy, I couldn’t wait to see how the classy vertical blue-and-white striped shirt looked with the official Premier League typeface on the back. Sure, it’s a Nike template, but you’d have to be nuts to mess with… oh. So the blues on the sleeves and the stripes won’t match, even though they’re within a half-shade each other? Is that… intentional, got it.
I like the away a little more each day, which has absolutely no visual precedent vis-a-vis Brighton that I know of. The third is recycled from last season, when it was fine.
Brighton have to find a way to stay up this year, so they can take another crack at a Premier League caliber home jersey.
A decidedly different take on vertical blue and white stripes. Huddersfield go for the “make opposing players wonder if they’re still hung over” effect. The blurry stripes (actually subtle halftone gradients on each edge) work for me. The away shirt is great. I assume that the goalie kit, with the word “TERRIERS” on it in the style of an American high school drum major, is just a couple of Puma interns having some fun in Photoshop. No way that makes the field, right?
Puma pulls out their gradient-stripe motif again here, and I don’t enjoy it as a subtle shoulder-stripe detail. It works much better when it’s the center of attention à la Huddersfield. The away jersey features two of my favorite details — thin horizontal piping, and a custom crest that matches the feel of the kit. Well done there. Not sure what happened to the third jersey; maybe when you sport claret and blue you don’t run into too many kit clashes.
It’s so hard to get excited by Chelsea’s kits. They check the boxes (classy, vibrant, risk-taking, reverential) but they never seem to have any life. This marks our first appearance of the mono-camo third, a look Nike was apparently really big on this year (read on). Whatever, Chelsea. These jerseys will look fine when your players are resignedly swapping them with whomever beats you in the Champions League quarters.
These are good! Really good. It’s nice to see an Albion that can do classy vertical blue and white stripes. (Sigh.) The away look is super sharp, and that blue v-neck is such a great detail. I don’t even mind the normally-intrusive adidas 3-stripe piping. If West Brom made a third kit (I couldn’t find one) they’d inevitably be a lot higher in these rankings.
Dig the classy stripes, and the cool aqua color and the speakeasy collars on the aways. Somehow when first tweeting, I overlooked that Umbro made these. They usually do stellar work, and while these won’t go into their hall of fame, it’s the solid year-in, year-out stuff — never a mis-step—that really makes them legendary.
Another case of fantastic home and away looks, but no third — so by my rules I’m forced to hold them back. With any sort of interesting third kit, Palace would be in the very upper tier of these rankings. The horizontal stripe on the away is such a smart reference to the home’s classic red and blue vertical stripes. Nit-picks: the crest doesn’t look good with with a white stroke around it. The sponsor is very busy. And of course they are Palace, Brighton’s sworn enemy. All this together probably cost them an intangible point or two.
City reminds me a bit of Chelsea. They share a frosty, manicured kind of classiness. I like my iconic visual identities to contain between 1 and 3 percent inexplicable weirdness. City doesn’t even contain trace amounts. That said, the designs are solid (building on basic Nike templates). Aubergine away could have been a monstrosity but ends up as a nice idea. More camo third, like, well, Chelsea. Carry on.
Either you’re buying my crap by now, or you’re long gone. Regardless, you’re in the right place.
The Gunners take the trophy for best photo shoot. (Put it in the case next to all those sought-after FA Cups.) A stuffy old English parlor provides a great setting and they really nailed that “adorably menacing” vibe that Arsenal specialize in. the home kit is what you want — a classic kept in good stead — and while the away isn’t doing much harm, the full-body gradient look is getting pretty stale. I’m sure The Tick is a fan, though. The third set looks pretty cool — this is where having a nice-looking sponsor really pays off. It allows you to try non-standard ideas that would get too complicated with a busy sponsor mark.
The home kit photo inspires a brief rant: I miss long-sleeved jerseys. A color-matched performance sleeve under a short sleeve shirt just doesn’t equal the coolness of real long sleeves. I blame Wayne Rooney for accelerating this trend, so it’s fitting that he’s back on Everton where they’re obviously ready to accommodate it. The shirt itself looks great — Everton/Liverpool matches will be beautiful affairs this year—and I give a few extra points for the single blocky stripe on the home socks. The away shirt is cool; those of us who are baseball fans might be overly adjusted to road greys, but it’s an underused color on the soccer landscape. The third kit is really sweet — exactly what you’d want a third to be. Weird, stylish and unique. Additional bonus points for custom crest work across the board. I also missed that Everton is outfitted by Umbro when I made my first pass — not sure why the all-around classiness didn’t tip me off.
Lofty highs, long, safe plateaus, and gut-churning lows — in the kit department, Manchester United gives you your money’s worth this year. The home is fine, which one would expect. Shoulder branding via the adidas stripes is almost always bad, as it is here. The sponsor, rendered in full shadow-and-gradient color, continues to look gaudy and gross next to the simple one-color sponsor marks favored by their peers. But the design is a classic and I do like the black and white sleeve ends.
The away kit is one of the best things made this year. It’s subtle, perfectly referential to an older, well-remembered design, and looks incredible in action. If only the sponsor was adjusted (like the crest) to play along, you’d have an invincible shirt. As it is, I awarded 10/10 for this one. It’s outstanding.
The third shirt is as bad as the away is good. Putting sublimated pictures on a shirt can work, but it has to be done very carefully. Whatever the goal was here, the result is cheesy. If the image took up the whole body of the shirt, coming off more like a texture (not dissimilar from the away), I think they’d have been on to something. This one will probably go down as a cult classic the way many embarrassing designs do. That doesn’t mean it’s good work, though. Best case, this shirt is fodder for a classy re-make (again, see the away jersey) in a few years’ time.
We’re starting to get into rare air here. Leicester’s home look is worthy of a championship run, as it was several years ago. They feel like a big club, visually, which can be an elusive quality to achieve. The blackout / gold look is wonderful, and the third is fine (though I would have liked to see a bit more risk-taking). Even if Leicester never makes another run to the top of the table, they’ve solidly established their look as a club that belongs there.
I surprised myself by ranking Stoke this high. I didn’t expect them to be here. To an outsider, everything about Stoke’s brand screams “workmanlike, plodding, physical” — they are, legendarily, home of the cold, rainy night, a place where elegance and flair go to die. Not the grist of beautiful kit design, one would think. But what’s great about Stoke’s kit set is that it doesn’t try to be elegant. The collection is tough-looking, almost rugby-esque. And it’s very well-designed. The home is nice; I originally tweeted “boring” but it’s grown on me. I should have awarded extra points for the cool blue-white-red striped collar. Away and third, thematic brothers, are fantastic. Tough, rigid collars. Great color choices. The wide horizontal band really conveys physical strength. I also like the way the squared-off placket unapologetically interrupts the band. There’s more than one way to visually honor your brand; Stoke have found a great one.
After a few years in the Warrior wilderness, Liverpool have righted the ship and produced (under a re-branded New Balance label) some very good looking kit sets of late. This is no exception. Liverpool home is as sure a bet as you can get. The piping and trim colors change a little, year by year (I’m partial to yellow, but I can be convinced that Fenway green works too), but the basic Liverpool home shirt is the gold standard for soccer brand greatness. Great job with the wide, white v-neck this year. Well done. The away is supremely interesting — it reads to me more like a third jersey, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s a little different and it’s executed well. Not super sure about the small white v-shaped patch under the collar; I would have preferred the quartered line to stretch all the way to the top. But that’s way down the list. The shirt is nice.
Despite the obligatory “traffic cone” jokes, I basically enjoy the orange third kit. It might look bad in action; I’ll reserve a final, final call until I see it on the field. (Maybe they’ll break it out on Halloween.)
Swansea have always seemed like a confidently-branded team. They’re shouldering a lot of Welsh pride, so the away kit makes a ton of sense and looks good to boot. Home and third are both solid, and a nice theme (similar collars and trim choices) moves through the set. This is a case study in how you alter a sponsor mark to fit the “mood” of each jersey — bold multi-color against the home white (where it really pops), with a unique flourish (a white stroke) on the red, and simple one-color against black (where it doesn’t need any extra help standing out). Well done.
It’s great to see Newcastle’s iconic black-and-white stripes back in the Premier League where they belong. They are one Newcastle Beer sponsorship away from being the best-dressed team in the league. (I don’t know what Fun88 is, but I don’t think it’s possibly as enjoyable as Newcastle.) Away and third are confident and very cool. There’s an energy to the entire collection; these guys are dressed like team who will play offensive, exciting soccer. Will that hold on the field? We’ll see. Welcome back, Toon.
First, a final mea culpa for missing that Everton and Bournemouth are also Umbro clubs this year. Those two had good sets, but West Ham’s is the best of the three and (says here) among the very best in the league. The home shirt is a very recognizable classic, given some extra heft with a tonal triangle under the collar. I dig it. The away is outstandingly reserved, with a perfect crest adjustment to boot. And the third… oh man, that third shirt. It reminds me of some of Umbro’s best modern work, and the modified crest has me salivating. The whole thing is so cool. West Ham better put together a great season to justify how good these jerseys are.
We arrive at the top of the heap. Spurs have come very close to being “the club” over the past two years. Maybe this set will help them make the final push. I’m honestly a little surprised that we got something this understated and beautiful from Nike. Both home and away are perfect. The sponsor adds a ton of visual value to the shirt. Examples like this one show why sponsors can work so well on a soccer jersey, and make it seem more complete. Yes, sponsors are advertising, but that doesn’t mean they’re always bad. When sponsor marks are simple and well-designed, and when they’re willing to play a role in the visual story the shirt is going for, they improve it by adding balance and contrast to the overall look. The shirt-sponsor match is rarely done as well as Spurs and AIA have done it here. The crest, like West Ham’s simplified model, is gorgeous. More camo third-kit frivolity from Nike, but even this version is the best of the lot, with a truly cool mono/neon crest concept thrown in.
If they don’t make it over the top this season, Tottenham won’t have the kits to blame.
I can only assume Premier League marketing departments are scrambling to make mid-season kit adjustments in an attempt to have me re-score their kits. (In Brighton’s case, I truly hope so.)
Tough call — any of these could have been #1.
It’s almost not fair; I get the impression that four of these are honest mis-steps, while United is just trolling. But who knows.
That was fun. Let’s do it again sometime.
M. Willis is the owner of Clean Sheet Co., an independent soccer apparel company.
