Coventry City crown a chaotic kit season as the Premier League returns

The barren, arid desert of two football-free weeks is over and the new Premier League season is upon us — and with it, the annual ritual of kit rankings. This year's home-shirt census covers all 20 clubs, and the verdict is as brutal as ever: a Friends-style jumper, a Homer Simpson hedge moment, and a sponsor logo compared to a "60 per cent off" sticker on out-of-date supermarket chicken.

"We've had at least two weeks without football, but now that barren, arid desert of nothingness is over and the new Premier League season is very nearly upon us," the reporter writes. "And what better signpost for the coming campaign than the return of our traditional kit rankings."

Here is the full rundown, from the bottom of the barrel to the shirt of the season.

The bottom of the pile

20. Newcastle United

Newcastle's Adidas shirt is labelled the worst of the lot. "Do you think that in their heart of hearts, in the cold light of day when they consider their work, even the person at Adidas who designed this shirt thinks it looks good?" the writer asks. The tribute to their early-1990s shirt is dismissed: "That looked stupid and this one does too." The concern is aesthetic and literal: "There's a solid chance that anyone who runs a bit too quickly wearing this will strobe as they go past you."

19. Chelsea

The Blues' shirt is slammed despite the absence of a sponsor. "What's going on here? It's not true to suggest that this looks like a dodgy, knock-off kit you'd find on a market somewhere because these days, those all look pretty convincing. This looks like a dodgy, knock-off kit you'd find on a market somewhere about 20 years ago." The extensive promotional campaign featuring Madonna and Gymskin dancing together did not save it: "Despite the extensive and occasionally bizarre promotional campaign... the shirt is simply no good."

18. Manchester City

City's Puma shirt fades from blue into white at the waist. "This 'colour fades into a different one at the waist' thing looked weird when Manchester United did it with red and black a few years ago, and it looks weird for City with blue and white now." It is, in the writer's words, "the football shirt equivalent of Homer backing into the hedge."

17. Hull City

Inspired by 1970s Hull shirts and using the old badge rather than the tiger, this one reads like a historical reproduction. "You get the strong sense that their players will just look like a bunch of 40-year-old dads playing five-a-side at their local Powerleague."

16. Nottingham Forest

Forest's actual home shirt loses out to a collaboration with Adidas Originals that "everyone seems to prefer." The home shirt itself "looks like someone has just been down the gym in it, sweated profusely, then passed it on to the players before a game." Or, more memorably: "It looks like that episode of Friends where they're trying to work out who the father of Rachel's baby is and they narrow it down to the owner of a red, mottled jumper: it looks like that jumper."

15. Bournemouth

A decent shirt wrecked by commercialism. The Vitality logo "is slapped onto the torso in such a way that it looks a bit like a '60 per cent off' sticker on some soon-to-go-out-of-date supermarket chicken." The background pattern depicting the club's 1930s logo "would have been a really nice touch were it not for the big pink distraction."

Mid-table meanders

14. Leeds United

Adidas bills the shirt as a tribute to the 400th anniversary of the Leeds town charter, but the writer is unconvinced: "It just looks like a white shirt with some horizontal blue and yellow pinstripes to us." The lack of distinctiveness rankles: "If you subscribe to the old Jerry Seinfeld line about sports fandom essentially boils down to 'cheering laundry'... it does mean something for a team to look distinct."

13. Fulham

Familiar to the point of forgettable. "You'd probably struggle" to identify the season of this shirt in a few years.

12. Aston Villa

A clean but bland effort that the writer rates as "just… a shirt." It feels "like the equivalent of someone saying 'I know this is a controversial opinion, right, but…' before announcing that they like cheese." The retrospective nod to the Paul Merson, Dion Dublin and Ugo Ehiogu era of thick stripes is noted as a bigger departure than this season's offering.

11. Everton

"Just the wrong side of the 'is it clean and simple or is it boring and unimaginative?' line." Castore's "marine flags found at the city's docks" inspiration requires squinting to see.

10. Crystal Palace

A admirable but flawed sash design rooted in the club's 1970s and 1980s identity. "The sash is a bit too wide and the bars on the shoulders are far too big."

9. Tottenham Hotspur

Nike's claim of "sharper, faster and more cutting-edge visuals than ever before" is met with scepticism: "Do you think even they believe it?" It is, ultimately, "just a white shirt with a couple of blue bits dabbed here and there."

8. Brentford

A genuine highlight. The "honey yellow" collar and cuffs tie to the Bees badge introduced in 2017. "It is genuinely quite a nice touch to introduce a fresh colour to a shirt without it being something random." Brentford again retain the shirt for two seasons.

7. Arsenal

A halfway house between recent designs, this Adidas shirt uses "two types of red" for the three stripes. "It does look slightly weird not having all three stripes as the same colour, almost as if... they forgot to order enough dark stripes." The collar is inspired by Emirates Stadium architecture, marking 20 years there.

6. Brighton & Hove Albion

A successful departure referencing the 1983 FA Cup final kit, with broken pinstripes and blue shorts rather than white.

5. Ipswich Town

"Very good." Inspired by the configuration of the stadium floodlights, the design is praised even if the concept is faintly absurd.

The podium

4. Sunderland

A deep retro tribute to their 1937 FA Cup-winning shirt, complete with 'S'-shaped FA Cup handle reproductions and the names of that game's players stitched inside the collar. "Fairly basic when you look at it from a distance but with more to it when you zoom in."

3. Manchester United

A proper United shirt, according to the writer, for nailing the colour proportions: red body, white trim, black on about a third of the white area. "It's also reminiscent of their shirt from 1990 just with a collar. Very good."

2. Liverpool

A literal tribute to the 1989-91 shirt, with white flecks on red "making it look a bit like a decorator's overalls… but in a good way." The verdict: "It's absolutely sensational, the best Liverpool have looked in years — and they have looked pretty good."

The shirt of the season

1. Coventry City

Newly promoted and top of the kit table. "Yes! Yes! Yes! Welcome back to the Premier League, Coventry City: you look fabulous." The mottled blue stripes inspired by the 1987 FA Cup final celebrations contrast beautifully with white, and even the sponsor fits. "The really great news is that they're not just back, but back with the best home shirt of the season." For older fans, the return sparked nostalgia for names such as Noel Whelan, Darren Huckerby and Mustapha Hadji.