The Premier League is often called “the best in the world”, but that’s almost certainly not true when it comes to fixtures.
Of course, there have been some sensational shirts since the competition’s inception, the late 1990s and early 2000s a particularly fruitful era of kit design. However, for every stunner, there are two or three absolute stinkers.
You can probably imagine them now. The monstrous patterns, the hideous color combinations, the ridiculous collars. There are plenty of surprises to choose from.
So that’s exactly what we did. These are the worst Premier League kits we’ve ever seen.
of Brentford Premier League The season has been marked by some woefully mediocre kits, but the Bees 2022/23 third shirt is truly offensive to the eyes.
Prepared by a graphic design intern in Microsoft Paint, the mix of pink and yellow confetti with a hideous betting sponsor has sealed their fate as the worst the Premier League has seen.
If a nondescript pattern in pale blue wasn’t bad enough, Wolverhampton Wanderers and adidas decided not to even plaster it all over the Old Gold 2020/21 shirt.
Stopping oddly at the shoulders, the only advantage of this shirt is that it was worn during a campaign where fans were unable to enter stadiums due to the coronavirus.
This could have been retrieved by Chelsea fans and enthusiasts of vintage football shirts, but there’s no denying that the design and color scheme hits the nail on the head.
Orange and gray, right?
Even Ruud Gullit’s stylish looks can’t save this Umbro 90s offering which looks weirder with every viewing.
Umbro didn’t learn from their mistakes when they designed the Manchester United 1995/96 away shirt. I think the official color name is prison porridge.
Again, this shirt is now adored by Man Utd supporters and kit fans alike for its retro charm, but even nostalgia goggles can’t make this kit look remotely nice.
Of course, this was also the shirt Man Utd changed to midway through a 3-1 defeat to Southampton in 1996 after Sir Alex Ferguson claimed the players were not properly seen on the pitch.
There’s probably a reason why you don’t see many Jako teams these days, especially in the Premier League. His brief stint with Portsmouth in the 1990s led to this abomination.
Red and Portsmouth are already an odd combination, but the faded gold accents only make things worse.
No wonder Pompey’s players could only motivate themselves to finish 17th in 2005/06.
Pink kits are all the rage these days. Clubs often find themselves inundated with orders when they release a good fuchsia or salmon number, but Everton probably didn’t have that problem in 2022/23.
Alongside Hummel, the Toffees produced one of the vomitiest pink shirts the world has ever seen, with a huge betting sponsor hardly helping.
Palermo would have been ashamed of this one.
We’ve tried to limit the number of goalie shirts on this list because, well, they’re almost all awful. But for us, this is the worst the Premier League has had to endure.
The clash of colors is on another scale, since Pony sacrificed its reputation as a kit manufacturer in the late 1990s.
I’m sorry Tottenham fans, this is unfortunate.
What you may have already noticed is that the away shirts tend to be a lot grayer than the home kits. Manufacturers play a riskier game with away and third-party shirts and it often backfires.
Chelsea’s 2012/13 third shirt is an example of the useless pattern on an alternative kit, with some unnecessary yellow accents slapped on the torso and stomach.
Kappa suffered a bit of an identity crisis after the 1990s and mainly took it out on Fulham, who he seemed to have a particular hatred for. How do you explain this 2012/13 away shirt?
A deep orange with black trim could work really well, but this doesn’t, with a weird collar and some unnecessary side panels.
Dimitar Berbatov deserved better.
Not quite as affectionately known as the ice pop kit, it’s no surprise that this was the year that Manchester City surrendered the Premier League title to Liverpool. After all, how can you be proud of your performances while wearing a combination of rhubarb and custard?
Puma had a rocky start as Man City’s kit makers and this is by far their most terrible creation.
The yellow highlighter will rarely facilitate a beautiful football shirt, but there’s no chance when you’re slapped with a bunch of messy Blackburn Rovers crests.
One sleeve tattooed and the other not, this thing is frankly a disgrace to the good people of Lancashire.
Under Armor are among the worst kit designers the Premier League has seen, delivering consistently boring and ugly kits. Unfortunately, Spurs had to put up with their awful kits for much of the 2010s.
The 2014/15 shirt is particularly bad, mainly because of the unnecessary navy stripe printed on the chest. The neck is also pretty terrible.
Has there ever been a sponsor more awful than Wonga?
That’s not the only disgusting thing about Newcastle United’s 2014/15 shirt, which has gone for a weird v-neck vibe that only serves to emphasize the horrible sponsor.
To see John Carver’s Newcastle in this is an unparalleled form of punishment.
In the same season as Newcastle’s monstrosity, Puma offered arsenal with a disgusting trio of shirts, the worst of which was the third shirt.
Arsenal’s Puma days represented a dark era for the Gunners, but it might have been a little more enjoyable if supporters hadn’t had to look at such a dreadful series of shirts.
Asymmetrical kits are difficult to remove and Man Utd He found that out the hard way in 2020/21, donning what became known as the zebra kit. A very unbalanced zebra, that is.
It was and still is the worst team Man Utd have ever produced, honestly try to find one that’s worse, and it goes to show that designing teams based on animals is a surefire way to fail.
Let’s start with the obvious. The Middlesbrough club crest is on the sleeve. Please don’t do it.
Second, a pattern that looks like your grandmother’s crockery is unlikely to go down too well with fans.
The strangeness of Boro’s kit was epitomized in his season wearing it, with the Yorkshire outfit reaching the League Cup and FA Cup finals (losing both) and relegated from the Premier League in 1996/97.
One of Liverpool’s worst modern memories came in this absolute audon of a football shirt. Of course, it was ‘Crystanbul’ at Selhurst Park, which saw the Reds squander a three-goal lead in the final 11 minutes against Crystal Palace as they battled for a first Premier League title.
Maybe it suits Liverpool they wore such an awful jersey on such an awful night, and Warrior failed to produce a single good kit in his three years with the Reds.
As further proof that vintage doesn’t always mean good, we bring you the Nottingham Forest 1995/97 away shirt. The dripping ink look that the Midlands club went for – exclusively on the shoulders of the shirt – is quirky, to say the least.
Equipped with an absurdly large open collar, this was another stinker from Umbro in the 1990s.
Warrior may be the worst kit maker in Premier League history. Can you imagine forcing Steven Gerrard, Luis Suarez and Philippe Coutinho to put on this absolute horror show?
It might not be as flashy as their other Liverpool shirts, but the gray collar around the neck is one of the worst things ever put on a football team.
Who remembers Coventry’s striking white and red kit worn during the 1992/93 season? pic.twitter.com/21qnCdk7k7
— 90s Football (@90sfootball) October 7, 2014
The inaugural Premier League season featured the worst kit we’ve ever seen and Coventry City are the unlucky winners of this list with their raw meat inspired away shirt.
They may have only finished 15th in the league in 1992/93, but they deserve some sort of trophy for wearing this shirt on their away travels throughout the campaign.
