Sometimes it’s difficult to remove your team bias and the emotional connection you feel with the colors of your favorite club. But try, for a minute, to be objective and open minded as you read through EPL Talk’s list of the Top 5 Worst Football Shirts of the 08/09 Premier League season (in order from worst to the absolute worst):
5. Portsmouth away.
This cross between a cricket shirt and a polo shirt looks like something your grandfather would wear. The shirt won’t strike fear in opponents. Instead it’ll create a few laughs especially when you’ll see Peter Crouch wearing this ridiculous shirt. The biggest problem about the shirt is the collar. Make it a modern v-neck and the shirt wouldn’t look so outdated.
4. Liverpool away.
Before Liverpool fans bite my head off and school me on the years when the Reds previously wore a gray away strip, I still feel it was a bad idea then and it’s a bad idea now. Gray doesn’t evoke any emotions. Instead, it’s depressing and puts me to sleep. Hopefully it won’t sum up Liverpool’s performance during the 08/09 season. Of all of the colors available, why choose gray?
3. Liverpool third.
In a normal season, Liverpool’s third strip would have been voted worst kit of the year but this year the Reds face some stiff competition. Just as it’s puzzling why Liverpool and Adidas would promote a gray away shirt, it makes you wonder what they were smoking when they decided to manufacture a green third shirt which resembles a goalkeeper’s shirt more than something that Steven Gerrard would model.
2. Newcastle United away.
The above picture of Newcastle’s away shirt doesn’t accurately portray how abysmal the shirt color is. It’s purple. Yes, purple. Why on earth a club would pick purple as the color of its away shirt is beyond me. Cue a thousand Barney The Dinosaur jokes. Newcastle is already the laughing stock of the Premier League in recent years. Why give fans of the 19 other Premier League clubs such an easy target as a purple away shirt to ridicule?
1. Bolton Wanderers home.
It’s obvious that Bolton didn’t run a focus group to seek people’s opinions about the new home jersey. Or if they did, they must have surveyed sports bra enthusiasts because this is one of the worst home shirt designs I can recall in recent memory. The shirt design is best summed up by the actual descriptions from EPL Talk readers: training top, big girl’s blouse, a harness and a junior school shirt.
What are your thoughts about the above designs and are there any other ones that you feel belong in the worst shirt category? Click the comments link below and share your feedback.
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Abysmal as the Bolton shirt is (and don’t get me wrong, it is abysmal), the two Liverpool shirts are worse. Really, I can’t imagine what they were thinking.
I actually like the Liverpool away kit…the away white kits were boring I think this is a step up. Though I loved the black away kits they wore in the CL last year and would have liked that as an away kit.
I think the green is also supposed to be a “throwback” of sorts but it is really, really awful.
There are a lot of ugly looking shirts this year. You would think that with the big TV money the clubs would want their products to look good
I’d actually say the Arsenal kits are pretty awful this year. And the Man U Away kit.
It seems that clubs are trying to do too much or using colors that are not even in their schemes.
Cheers to Spurs, Fulham, Middlesbrough, and Hull for pretty sleek and classic looking kits.
How was the Arsenal away kit left off of this list? I like the Liverpool Grey kit, even more so after it showed up at my front door last week.
Portmouth kit is very classy imo…and what kind of shirt do you expect to “strike fear into opponents”.
I hate the Bolton kit but do enjoy the vintage Reebok logo as opposed to the RBK one they have used recently. Besides that absolutely the worst kit ever.
I don’t mind the Liverpool away kit.. Gray isn’t the best choice but sure beats out the Highlighter Yellow Chelsea jerseys from last year..
Seeing as the Liverpool third shirt hasnt been unveiled officially yet you may be jumping the gun somewhat. As for the review of grey, its a great kit which most LFC fans are happy with.
…and lets hope Newscastle (no2) do better in 2008 than Northern Rock!
As much as I hate to admit it, the Arsenal kits suck this year. And don’t forget the Everton away kit.
Wow, its bad enough they’ll probably go down this year, but to go down in a training bra is 10x worse.
Here is a poll on my site asking if fans like the new shirt of not, pretty comprehensive:
http://www.the-wanderer.co.uk/boards/viewtopic.php?t=15608
How hard would it have been to the club/Reebok to do a quick survey like that?
Call me biased, but I think the Portsmouth jersey is an improvement over the kit worn the past two years, with that beige patch high up the back (was it supposed to be a sailor’s kerchief?) And there’s nothing wrong with the collar — maybe Pompey is starting a trend by bringing it back.
The liverpool third shirt is real:
http://www.football-shirts.co.uk/fans/liverpool-third-shirt-officially-launched_1490.
The official Liverpool site has a photo of Gerrard and Torres in the third kit, and it looks better in that picture. Not good, mind you, but better.
i think liverpools grey kit is nice as is newcastles away, it is the same as chelsea’s man u kit is horrible worse than any kit on there and how is hull’s and middlesbourgh’s nicer than liverpool’s home kit, you don’t know what you are doing
portsmouth’s kit is nicer than man ushiteds
IM A MAN CITY FAN AND OUR AWAY KIT ISNT UP TO MUCH, THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I SEEN THE BOLTON KIT ITS A POOR DESIGN BUT SOMETIMES THEY LOOK DIFFERENT WHEN BEING WORN SO ILL WAIT TO SEE IT BEING WORN BEFORE GIVING MY VERDICT. AS FOR THE GREY LIVERPOOL KIT I HAVE SEEN THAT BEING WORN ITS A DISGRACEFUL KIT IT IS PROBABLY THE MOST UGLY KIT I HAVE SEEN, ONE GUY WROTE MOST LIVERPOOL FANS ARE HAPPY WITH IT THATS BULL PULL THE OTHER ONE I HEARD THE BLIND LIVERPOOL FANS ARE COMPLAINING ITS THAT UGLY. AS FOR THE POMPEY SHIRT I THINK THATS QUITE SMART.
What's wrong with the Pompey shirt??? I think it's fine personally …
I think all of these shirts are OK. No matter what the colour, at least these are one plain colour, not the hideous patterns of the 1970’s shirts.