When judging the best and worst designs of shirts for Premier League clubs each summer, we generally wait until we see the ones from Wigan since they’re usually some of the worst. But while Wigan has changed their shirt manufacturers again, we’ve run out of patience with the Latics and bring you my verdict on the best and worst Premier League shirt designs for the 2010-11 season.

We did a similar thing last summer when we picked the good, the bad and the ugly of Premier League shirt designs for the 2009-10 season.

Browse through the best and worst designs to see how your favorite club did:

Best Premier League jerseys of the 2010-11 season:

9. Blackburn Rovers home

The symmetry of the Blackburn Rovers jersey by Umbro is perfect. The blue and white halves are practically a mirror image, but the sponsor’s logo seems to keep a bond between the two halves. It’s another classy design by Umbro and one of the better Blackburn home jerseys in quite some time.

8. Everton home

If you removed the sponsor’s name, club crest and Le Coq Sportif logo from this shirt and asked soccer fans to figure out which club it belonged to, most would answer Everton. Rather than busy the shirt design with flashes of color or fancy trim, Le Coq Sportif stuck with the basics and created a classic Everton shirt.

7. Birmingham City home

When a club asks its supporters to select the design of their new jersey, it’s quite often a sound decision. Such was the case when Birmingham City presented several designs for supporters to choose from for their 2010-11 home shirt. The picture of the winning design (pictured above; which doesn’t do the shirt as much justice as it deserves) is bold, modern and like unmistakeable that it’s a Birmingham City shirt.

6. Liverpool third

The sharp contrast between the yellow trim and black shirt will definitely make Liverpool’s third jersey for the 2010-11 season stand out in a crowd. The classic Adidas style is simple, understated and perfect. Don’t change a thing.

5. Manchester City home

The unmistakeable color of Manchester City’s home shirt looks even better when it’s featured in a modern but clean design. The collar is different, but will hopefully look better in person.

4. Sunderland home

While many northeast Englanders may refuse to admit it, Sunderland and Newcastle United have a lot in common. But perhaps the biggest commonality is their similarity in design of soccer shirts. Newcastle United features the black and white stripes of Tyneside, while Sunderland embrace the red and white stripes of Wearside. But a big difference this season is how classy the Sunderland home shirt is while the Newcastle United one is too complicated for its own good. Designed by Umbro, Sunderland’s home jersey features clean lines, a traditional collar and a sponsor’s name that seems to fit well with everything. Bingo!

3. Everton away

You can say that one thing that Everton has is cajones. Very few clubs would come out of the closet not only with a pink shirt, but one that’s described as “lightning pink.” But fair play to Everton for deciding to go with something bold rather than the play-it-safe designs of fellow Premier League clubs. It’s bright. It’s bold. It’s in your face. And at the end of the day, it’s a well-designed shirt.

2. Tottenham Hotspur home

There’s something lovable about the new Tottenham jersey that gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling. At first I thought it was the retro design. But it suddenly dawned on me what it was this past weekend when I saw Spurs wearing the jersey for the first time in their friendly against San Jose Earthquakes. It was that the shirt reminds me of the North American Soccer League (NASL). While there is no NASL shirt that specifically mirrors the look of the original Tottenham design, the spirit of the NASL is very much alive in the above design. Die-hard Tottenham supporters may refute the suggestion, but there’s no doubt that Puma’s design is a breath of fresh air in a design year that has been quite stale.

1. Arsenal home

Arsenal and Nike made a smart choice in going back to the design of the Gunners shirt from the early 70s and reinventing it for 2010. The simplicity of the shirt is what wins you over and it has enough splashes of modernity with the logo, updated crest and sponsor’s name to not overdo it. The only criticism is that the red cuffs at the bottom of the sleeve look too big, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Worst Premier League jerseys of the 2010-11 season:

7. Tottenham away

The question that comes to my mind when I see a picture of Tottenham’s away jersey is, why? Why create a jersey that is so forgettable? Why not create a shirt that is as bold as the new home one but in sky blue instead? Instead, what we end up with is a shirt design that is plucked from the Puma template and updated with its baby blue colors. This shirt does nothing for me.

6. Liverpool away

Liverpool’s design of their away jersey wouldn’t be so bad if it was for the pinstripes. They detract from the overall design of the shirt and clouds the aesthetic quality of the shirt that lies beneath it. Remove the pinstripes and the rest of the design would be allowed to breath.

5. Aston Villa home

It’s rare for a club as classy as Aston Villa to unveil a shirt design that is lacking of, well, class. Uninspiring, bereft of ideas and unattractive, the shirt looks like it was cobbled together by some mad seamstresses at the last minute.

4. Fulham home

It’s bad enough that the design of the shirt looks like something an AYSO team would wear, but the shirt is made worse by the obnoxious tag line that appears under the sponsor’s name.

3. West Bromwich Albion home

A brilliant shirt design ruined by a horrible sponsor logo and phone number. While the shirt does everything right, the sponsorship completely wrecks it and cheapens it considerably.

2. Manchester United away

It’s not so bad that the away shirt was white, but Nike had to spoil it by adding a Flash Gordon-inspired lightning flash to separate the blue and red colors.

1. Chelsea away

This Halloween inspired shirt is no joke. Not only is it black with orange trim, but to make matters worse it features pinstripes on the front of the shirt. This is yet another poor design of a Chelsea away shirt.

So there you have it. Some of the best and worst shirt designs for Premier League clubs. There were many that weren’t featured in the rankings above. So many of them were blah, middle of the road designs that neither made me swoon or vomit. But let’s just hope that next season the quality of the creative designs improves.

To me, it’s interesting to note how Adidas, once a leader in shirt designs, has relinquished its superiority to create wonderful designs in the Premier League. Other than Liverpool, its designs for Premier League clubs have been very lacking of late.

I don’t believe this coming season will be the worst, but it’s time for clubs to think longer and harder about their away jerseys and, if they’re still not sure, ask their supporters for advice. Judging by many of the designs shown above in the worst section, their supporters weren’t polled.

What do you think? Which shirts are missing from the best and worst that you think should be included? And which rankings do you agree or disagree with? Click the comments link below to share your opinion.

For the largest selection of Premier League shirts for all 20 clubs, visit the EPL Talk Shop.

Everton has officially unveiled their new home football kit for the 2010-11 season.

Everton’s new home shirt from Le Coq Sportif features a simple yet elegant blue top with white trim (see above picture featuring Tim Cahill wearing the kit). The shirt also features a wave of blue across the upper part of the chest, a stylistic feature that is also included in Everton’s new away kit.

Everton will wear their new home kit for the first time on July 10th, when they face Sydney FC during the first-team squad’s pre-season tour of Australia. In addition to the fixture against Sydney FC, the Blues will play two other games while ‘Down Under,’ against Melbourne Heart on July 14 and Brisbane Roar on July 17.

Another photo of the new Everton home kit can be seen after the jump.

Share your feedback about the new Everton football shirt design in the comments section below.

For the largest selection of Premier League shirts for all 20 clubs, visit the EPL Talk Shop.

Everton’s new home jersey for the 2010-11 season will be a simple but beautiful design instead of their away kit, which is bright pink.

The new leaked photo of the Everton home shirt reveals a very traditional and clean design featuring Everton’s famous blue shirts. The sponsor’s name and the Le Coq Sportif are in white but the rest of the shirt, other than the Everton team crest, is in blue. You may also notice a swaft of blue across the upper chest and into the corner, which looks very similar to the swaft of blue across the away shirt. Consistency between the home and away shirt is definitely a good idea.

It’s refreshing to see that Everton has gone with a design concept of ‘less is more.’ The end result is an attractive shirt that supporters will love, I’m sure.

What do you think of the new shirt design? Click the comments link below to share your feedback.

For the largest selection of Premier League shirts for all 20 clubs, visit the EPL Talk Shop.

Source: Todo Sobre Camisetas

Everton’s new home jersey for the 2010-11 season will thankfully be a lot more traditional as opposed to the club’s new away kit which is a bright pink.

The news will come as a welcome relief for many Everton supporters. The traditional blue and white colors of Everton are featured in the new design which is manufactured by Le Coq Sportif. The home shirt is very plain and simple, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Sometimes simple is better as in the case with this new Everton home shirt.

Share your feedback about the new Everton football shirt design in the comments section below.

For the largest selection of Premier League shirts for all 20 clubs, visit the EPL Talk Shop.

Everton today launched their new away shirt for the 2010-11 season. And it’s pink, yes pink. Don’t say we didn’t warn you (we posted a sneak peek of the shirt last week).

Everton’s new away jersey is described as “lightning pink” with a navy blue bar across the chest. According to the club website, the shirt color “combination that has been designed to make players more visible in their teammates’ peripheral vision.” You can say that again. There’s no doubt that players, fans and TV viewers won’t notice the bright pink shirts!

Designed and manufactured by Le Coq Sportif, the new Everton away shirt is inspired by the Everton of old explains Everton chief executive Robert Elstone: “This new kit takes its inspiration from our Club’s history, indeed it dates back to the 1890/91 season when Everton were crowned league champions for the very first time. The old pink kit saw Everton crowned champions, we want this new kit to help take Everton to the next level.”

What do you think of the new Everton away shirt? Click the comments link below to share your feedback.

For the largest selection of Premier League shirts for all 20 clubs, visit the EPL Talk Shop.

A photograph has been leaked of what looks like Everton’s new away football shirt for the 2010-11 season.

The photograph (please excuse the poor quality) features a picture of a pink away shirt for the Toffees. We’ll have to wait and see if the final shirt is actually pink or, due to the poor lighting, is more of an orange color. But Everton has worn pink in the past. In fact, it was the color of their home shirt for a few seasons during the 1880s.

What do you think of the new Everton away shirt? Click the comments link below to share your feedback.

For the largest selection of Premier League shirts for all 20 clubs, visit the EPL Talk Shop.

I’m just going to come right out and say it: I suck at Photoshop.

A year ago, a Digital Photography course I had to take for my degree at university pushed me head-first into the world of photo-doctoring. Not to the point where we were creating things that weren’t there, but just touching pictures up so that they looked more aesthetically pleasing. I got out of the class with a solid A, but I didn’t then and I wouldn’t now call myself an expert.

Other people are, though, and fair play to them. However, when some of these supposed artists’ work – namely fake football shirt designs – hits the presses otherwise known as the Internet, I can’t help but ponder the following:

Shouldn’t we have anything better to do with our lives?

I realize that morbid curiosity gets the best of pretty much everybody at some stage, but sometimes I really do fear for those who fall at the first few hurdles. If you want a case in point, we’re right in the middle of a pretty big one at the moment, with tech-savvy prognosticators trying to predict what Adidas, Nike, Umbro, Canterbury, Under Armour – Yes, really. Hannover 96 must protect this house! – and all the rest of the kit manufacturers are going to be coming up with for club and national sides for the upcoming season.

That’s fine, except that by my math, ‘next season’ for a lot of those teams is around about five months away.

To help put this into perspective, allow me to throw in a personal anecdote. The club I support, Manchester City, is in its second year of a contract with French kit manufacturer Le Coq Sportif – Which translates into English as ‘The Sporty Rooster.’ …Yeah, okay. – and has travel agency Thomas Cook as their main sponsor. Both of these things are set to change next season, with City changing manufacturers (to Umbro) and possibly sponsors (to Etihad Airways).

I’m not going to speak for all City fans here, but frankly even that bit about next year’s kits is more than I’m really all that bothered to know at present, especially when I’m much more concerned with what’s going on more immediately with a club that’s still very much alive in the UEFA Cup and battling to retain their place in Europe for next season. Therefore, you can imagine that I might have been a wee bit annoyed the other day to find that the blog Todos Sobre Camisetas had unearthed the Blues’ supposed new home shirt for the 2009-10 campaign…or so they and we are all led to think.

On the surface, it’s all there: club badge on the left (from the wearer’s perspective), Umbro logo on the right, ‘Etihad Airways’ emblazoned in block letters on the middle of the chest. The only problem? It looks just like the supposed new England home shirt that has been making the rounds on Internet football sites. Which may or may not actually be the real thing. And is supposedly going to retail at a recession-tastic £50.

It’s with that last point in mind, then, that I put out the following question: Why are we encouraging this? I suppose there is the possibility that a lot of these ‘insiders’ are just wind-up merchants and/or supporters of other teams that are trying to get a rise out of rival fans, but I fail to see what purpose that serves.

Premiership clubs  evidently reserve the right to come out with the following season’s kits before the last one’s even finished anyway – See among others Chelsea wearing this season’s ‘new’ kit in the Champions League final last summer – thereby giving fans something to tide them over during the summer, which in my mind makes this plagiari…er, art of creating fake kit designs ultimately kind of pointless.

Then again, maybe I just have more pressing issues to worry about.

Photographs have been leaked of what are presumably the new home and away Everton shirts for the 2009-10 season. Designed by Le Coq Sportif, who are set to take over from Umbro as Everton’s official kit suppliers, the shirts feature radically different designs than what Everton currently have.

The home shirt pictured is a modern tribute to Everton’s Le Coq Sportif home shirt (pictured right) from the 1983-85 seasons. In those incredibly successful seasons for Everton, the club won the FA Cup in 1983-84, the English First Division title in 1984-85 and the European Cup Winners Cup trophy in 1984-85.

Just like the 1983-85 shirt, the new Everton shirt features a distinctively white V-neck.

Everton’s new away shirt, meanwhile, is black with pink trim and features a classic collar.

Whether both of these designs will end up being the final football shirts for Everton is unknown at this time. But, if these shirts are the ones that will be released ths summer, what are your thoughts about them? Personally I think they’re both perfect. The home shirt has a retro significance but looks very modern. The away shirt is refreshingly different, and I’m always a big fan of black shirts.

For the largest selection of Premier League shirts for all 20 clubs, visit the EPL Talk Shop.

Related Posts:

• Order The Official 2009-2010 Everton Home Football Kit,
• Is David Moyes Ready For A Big Four Management Position?
• Interview With Dave Moor From Historical Football Kits Website.

Everton have reportedly dumped Umbro as their kit manufacturer and have replaced them with Le Coq Sportif beginning with the 2009/2010 season. Also reportedly gone are kit distributors JJB who are being replaced by Kitbag instead.

Everton have developed a love hate relationship with Umbro over the years. Umbro has been Everton’s official kit manufacturer for 1974-1983, 1986-2000 and 2004-2009. The delayed release of the new Everton home shirt this past summer must have been the last straw for the club and its fans. The shirts were delayed by Umbro until late July because of quality control issues experienced in the Far East where the shirts were made.

A good indication that the rumor may be true of Umbro being dumped in favor of Le Coq Sportif is the fact that Everton’s online megastore have slashed their prices for their home, away and third shirt by 60% from £39.99 to £14.99. This is absolutely ridiculous. The third shirt was only released on October 7!

When Everton wore Le Coq Sportif kits from 1983 to 1986, it coincided with the club winning a ton of silverware. During this time, Everton won the First Division (1984-85), the FA Cup (1984), Charity Shield (1984 and 1985) and European Cup Winners Cup (1985).

The Le Coq Sportif years at Everton are synonymous with some of the club’s best players in recent memory including Gary Lineker (pictured above), Graeme Sharp, Gary Stevens, Kevin Ratcliffe, Trevor Steven, Peter Reid, Kevin Sheedy, Andy Gray and Neville Southall.

The only two Premier League clubs who currently wear Le Coq Sportif shirts are Manchester City and Stoke City. However, Manchester City look likely to sign a deal with Puma for the 2009-10 season and beyond.

Are Manchester City fans getting fatter or are they requesting baggier shirts for fashion reasons?! I think the former.

The above image is taken from Man City’s online shop.