No Elland Road this weekend. No league table to argue about either, just the long flat stretch of an international window and a fixture list that insists Arsenal away on the 10th is still a week off. So instead of forcing a verdict on ninety minutes nobody got to watch, we're doing something that's been overdue since August: actually reading the kits.
Because this season isn't just three shirts, it's a 400th birthday present to the city. Every design this year nods back to 1626, when Leeds was granted its Royal Charter, and once you know that, you can't unsee it.
Start with the home kit: white body, quiet, confident blue-and-yellow horizontal stripes that don't shout about themselves — very on brand for a city that would rather let the football do the talking. adidas call it "designed as much for the terraces as it is for the pitch," which is their way of admitting what we already knew: this one was built for the pub as much as the away end.
Then the away kit — yellow, properly yellow, with the white rose brought back onto the crest for what the club called a historic first. Lucas Radebe narrated the launch video, which tells you how seriously this one was taken. Retro without being a costume, loud without tipping into Norwich. We'll allow it.
And the third kit is the one that splits opinion down the pub: carbon grey, a layered industrial-heritage pattern across the front and shoulders, silver detailing — genuinely handsome until the Red Bull logo turns up dead centre doing its best impression of a traffic cone in a black-and-white photograph. We all have one relative who turns up to family do's wearing something slightly too loud. This kit is that relative. We love it anyway.
Compare that to some of what else landed around the league this summer. Bournemouth's new home shirt is currently rated among the worst in Premier League history — done in almost entirely by a sponsor so disliked that fans are publicly begging for it to just be a different colour. Imagine getting the stripes exactly right and still getting undone by shirt-sponsor pink. At least when our third kit gets loud, it's trying to make a point about the city rather than just being an accident.
Anyway — three kits, one charter, zero fixtures this week to actually wear them to. Which is exactly the kind of gap a phone case, a bucket hat or a mug exists to fill.
Can't choose between the three? Neither could we, which is why the phone case bundle exists — home, away and third, covered in one go, argument settled before it starts. The reversible bucket hat does the same trick for your head: yellow on one side, grey on the other, flip it depending on your mood or how the morning's going. And if you need the white rose staring back at you before the first brew of the day, the home kit mug's not going anywhere.
Arsenal away is a week on Saturday. Until then, we've got shirts to argue about and merch to send round the group chat. Siuup optional.
