Chelsea 2017-18 Nike home shirt leaked, and it’s beautiful

Beauty of course is in the eye of the beholder, but to me, the simple design of the leaked 2017-18 Chelsea home shirt is glorious. It’s the first effort from Nike for Chelsea and the fact that they kept it classic bodes well for the future. No silly two-tone* sleeves here!

If you look closely, the sleeves are still a raglan design (i.e. the sleeves extend all the way to the collar rather than just to the elbow), but because it’s the same color as the body of the shirt, it doesn’t look cheap or silly. It’s probably a slightly different weave than the body of the shirt (as in the new Manchester City home kit), but that should only be noticeable up close. The Chelsea Blue is a beautiful Blue, and this shirt has loads of it — though it may be a slightly darker shade of Royal Blue; it’s tough to tell in these sorts of pictures.

According to Footy Headlines, the shorts will be a matching blue, while the socks, as usual, will be white. Sounds good to me!

The shirt won’t be released officially until next month, after the adidas contract expires on June 30.

* Chelsea have never had a two-tone home shirt design in our history. We’ve had subtle patterns and stripes, but nothing of the sort that was rumored for this year’s Nike effort. The closest we’ve ever come to a two-tone sleeve on a home shirt was this Umbro effort from 1997-99. Look, it even made Zola cry out in pain.