September 25 2020

CPFC kits for 2020/21

Of all of the clubs in the Premier League, when it comes to kits, Crystal Palace's rarely fail to impress.

With a new season comes a new wave of kits, with Palace rolling out a blue and red home kit, a white away kit featuring a red and blue stripe, and a black third kit also featuring the red and blue stripe. All three strips are of the same format, offering fans the chance to pick whichever background colour they prefer.

Now, several games into the 2020/21 campaign, we’ve seen the new kits in action enough to judge them properly. So, how do the new Eagles shirts rank across the board?

Few can contend with the colours of Crystal Palace

There are many 2020/21 Premier League shirt rankings on the internet. Some like the basic red with white-and-teal collars and cuffs of Liverpool, others like the nostalgia of Newcastle’s classic black-and-white stripes that rarely change.

Southampton are also quite highly praised for their kit, having walked onto the pitch in a trendy sash design, straying from the stripes to a style that has worked very well for Palace alternate kits in the past.

However, Crystal Palace’s understated and classy kit is the one that ranks above all others this season. Particularly with the home kit, the design is superbly simple yet bold, with the blue shoulders blending into the stripes and the red stripe blocks adding some shape.

The template’s effectiveness when it comes to the away and third kit – using three colours instead of two – is lessened, somewhat, but the more frequently-used home kit is a thing of beauty.

Nowadays, a sponsor can ruin a nice kit

Often put up there with the nicer kits, Wolverhampton Wanderers have the same sponsor as the Eagles had last season, and it has sunk their aesthetics a fair bit. As was the case for Palace’s shirts last year, there’s just too much going on with a logo, Chinese text, and then brand print as well. In fairness, a gambling sponsor’s design rarely compliments a football shirt, with there being perhaps one shining example in the past.

As much as they are London rivals, albeit, from the north side, Tottenham Hotspur’s pure white and baby blue shirts of 2006/07 showed precisely how a gambling sponsor could work on a Premier League shirt.

At the time, Mansion wasn’t the most prominent brand, whereas nowadays they are rated as the best casino with a signup bonus, but their clean-cut, and somewhat classy, logo with ‘Mansion’ beneath made for a good-looking sponsor for the equally clean-cut Spurs shirts.

Pascal Chimbonda and Mido joins Spurs in August 2006 #COYS pic.twitter.com/PiFhwBXj2b

— Spurs Nostalgia (@thfcnostalgia) August 19, 2015

This year, the number of gambling sponsors in the top flight has fallen from ten in 20 to eight. Burnley, Fulham, Leeds United, Newcastle, Southampton, West Ham United, and Wolves join Palace in this regard.

Out of them all, though, the Eagles certainly wear it best. The minimal text with the slick gold logo makes for a pleasant accent to the superb kit design, which is one of the reasons why Palace’s home shirt is the best in the league this season.

Eagles fans are regularly blessed with a slick kit design, and this year isn’t any different.