Puma go back to move forward with Man City kit and shrug off Nike concerns

Sometimes you have to go back to go forwards.

Puma have always looked to take inspiration from Manchester City and the local area as part of their 10-year partnership with the club, while at the same time looking to push the envelope for daring designs.

It resulted in some spectacular efforts that went down very well, such as the Hacienda-striped away kit in the 2019/20 kit or the special anniversary shirt worn in the Community Shield that year. There have also been some duds, with the home shirt particularly difficult to nail; from adding purple in to the mosaic effect on the shirt to the all-blue effort for this season failing to really excite.

More concerning for City fans who take an interest in this kind of thing was the third kit for this season. It wasn't so much that the club badge wasn't visible on the shirt - although that hardly added to the appeal, especially when a player went to kiss the badge after scoring and couldn't find it - but the fact that Puma had used the same design for clubs across Europe; the same template was used for AC Milan, Borussia Dortmund, Borussia Monchengladbach, Marseille, Valencia, PSV Eindhoven, Shakhtar Donetsk and Fenerbahce.

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This was a return to the generic, lazy templates used by Nike during their partnership with City that left supporters longing for a change. As the club established itself as one of the best in Europe, it demanded better than a copy-and-paste approach.

The new home kit, to be worn for the 2022/23 season, could not be further away from that and represents a welcome turn away from the 93:20 era after the tenth anniversary of Sergio Aguero's goal. This shirt, with maroon