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AI spat out a Marmite for the reigning world champions
As you’re reading this right now there will be children (and maybe even a few adults) either dreaming of ripping open the new Chelsea shirt that’s sitting under their Christmas tree, or already outside running around in the crisp winter air practising their skills and Cold Palmer celebrations.
And in fairness, while there are more unsavoury things you can accuse The Blues of, bad kits aren’t one of them, at least right now. In the past, there have been some shockers.
It’s one of the great ironies of football in 2025/26 that Chelsea, the team who revolutionised spending in the Premier League, are now the only prominent club in world football who don’t have a front-of-shirt sponsor.
And that combined with ditching the hideous beige or peach designs of previous years (seriously, why do clubs try to make these nauseous colours work? Tottenham’s muddy 2023/24 third kit is another offender) Chelsea’s range has a serious claim to be the best in the Premier League. The away shirt inspired by the 1970s Magnificent Magyars is a beauty while their black throwback third kit simply oozes class, with the home kit looking fantastic too. Unlike this bunch of disasters.
This means that when we tried to come up with a new design, it was much easier to turn to artificial intelligence and Grok for help. This is what it produced…
AI designs Chelsea’s new kit for the 2026/27 season
A Chelsea shirt generated by AI | Grokplaceholder image
A Chelsea shirt generated by AI | Grok | Grok
So is it a hit or a miss? We simply can’t work it out, but the design is certainly in keeping with Chelsea’s direction of travel in the last few seasons. After a long run of almost exclusively blue-and-white designs, Chelsea have featured red more prominently in the last two seasons and this would be their most rouged shirt in a while.
Grok explains the big design choices as: “Simple white ribbed crew neck with a very thin red piping line inside the neck – a nod to the clean, classic collars from the 1970s and 2000s eras, but modern and understated.
“Curved white panels running from the shoulders down the sides, outlined in red piping – gives a dynamic, athletic look while keeping it sleek (inspired by some of Nike’s recent templates but toned down for timelessness).”
Grok also said it was designed to invoke Claude Makelele, Didier Drogba and Gianfranco Zola and though we’re not entirely the dates line up with those specific examples - particularly Drogba - it fits with the throwback designs we’ve seen from Adidas including for Liverpool and Italy in the last few years.
This certainly has the makings of an instant classic and as with most kits, Chelsea’s success in it would have a large bearing on whether it down as a fan favourite. Manchester United’s 2019/20 was a stunner but The Red Devils fell flat on the pitch and it’s been largely forgotten about over five years on, while there was nothing special about Chelsea’s 2011/12 design but their Champions League triumph makes it one of the club’s most iconic strips.
So we believe this has that same potential to define an era with the place-and-time white detailing and thoughtful red piping.
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