Manchester United 2022/23 shirts leaked ahead of new season

It is kit release season, and while Manchester United FC have yet to officially reveal next season’s shirts, internet sleuths have unearthed photos of varying quality of the three new United tops for the 2022/23 campaign.

Rather than simply share those same leaked images, offering you a grainy glimpse of what is to come, we’ve taken the various unofficial photos and recreated the three tops using the magic of technology and a little bit of educated guessing.

Manchester United home shirt for 2022/23

The new primary shirt certainly falls within the guidelines of a traditional United top, and of the three new shirts it’s the one we have the best imagery of. Mostly red with a white collar, the design has a bit of a 90s feel with the white polo collar, accented with a red-and-black-striped triangle pattern. Throughout the body and sleeves of the top are subtle pinstripes, each made up of a tiny repeating three-stripe design. Sponsor logos are rendered in white and the crest is surrounded by a separate shield (the entire thing, based on photos, is a textured flexible vinyl heat transfer badge), a trick MUFC has done on previous years’ kits. The shoulders are adorned with Adidas’ iconic three stripes in black.

Manchester United away shirt for 2022/23

The second choice top is white and black, carrying over the same shield-style badge (but with a black background instead of red as on the primary top). This one features a squared-off V-neck collar, which along with the sponsors, Adidas stripes and contrasting sleeve cuffs is rendered in black. It’s very hard to make out in the low-res leaked photo, but the collar also appears to have a red and white diamond pattern (our best guess is rendered here).

Manchester United third shirt for 2022/23

The third option is the brightest of the bunch, done up in yellow (possibly a highlighter/hi-vis yellow and not the yellow from the club badge, it’s tough to tell due to the lighting in the leaked photos). Everything – badge, sponsors, stripes, collar – is rendered in a single color, what looks to be black or possible a very dark blue. The third looks to have a much simpler collar trim compared to the red and white tops, but it’s no less effective in adding just a touch of interest to what is a very basic design.

Manchester United kits for 2022/23 reviewed

Overall, this is a sharp looking set. While off the wall colors on 2nd- and 3rd-choice kits can often be fun, I always appreciate it when a club keeps everything within their standard color palette when designing their alternate tops each year. It’s always baffling to me when a club like United comes out on the field wearing, for example, the color blue which is worn by several of their rivals. The red, white and yellow offerings for 22/23 carry thru some consistent design elements across all three shirts, making it feel like a true set of uniforms and not three unrelated shirts that aside from the badge could easily be from three different clubs.

Grade: A (tentative)

Granted, we haven’t officially seen the final product here. So, there are some details we may be missing at this point. But it’s a clean and bold look for the Red Devils during 2022/23. For clubs with traditionally simple kit designs, it’s all about the little details and it looks like United and Adidas have hit the mark for their 2022/23 offerings.

Photo credit: Getty Images via Visionhaus / Contributor