'Super cool' or the vomiting emoji? Divisive new Manchester United kit leaked online ahead of release
A brand new Manchester United kit has been leaked online - and has divided opinion among the fans.
You could be forgiven for thinking that there wouldn’t be any more kit reveals left for the 2025/26 season, given that we’re already a couple of months in – but Adidas are here to prove you wrong by releasing a brand new Manchester United kit, and it’s a pretty unusual design.
The 2025/26 Manchester United ‘lifestyle retro jersey’ won’t be worn in actual matches, but may well find itself onto plenty of Christmas lists anyway thanks to a spicy design which harks back to one of the Red Devils’ most iconic kits of the Nineties.
Manchester United’s new ‘lifestyle retro jersey’ leaked online
Details of the new design have been ‘leaked’ online, according to reporting by Footy Headlines, meaning that the new shirt hasn’t been officially confirmed – but as the image above shows, it seems to have been modelled partly on the club’s famous pale blue away kit from 1990-1992.
The blue and white ‘snowflake’ pattern made famous by that shirt returns, a device echoed on the club’s official white and purple away jersey for the 2025/26 campaign – and the blue and yellow collar from this season’s third kit is back, too, as Adidas continue the themes from their mainline shirts.
The rather glaring difference between the new lifestyle kit and the early Nineties version is, of course, the checker-board pattern laid over the top, which both the club crest and Adidas’ alternate trefoil logo centred in two of the black boxes.
The final result is effectively a blend of both the iconic blue away top from 1990 onwards and another popular change kit from that decade, the black shirt which was worn in both the 1993/94 and 1994/95 seasons – which this year’s third kit is a throwback to.
New shirt gets mixed reviews from Man United fans
The callbacks to some of United’s best away kits are likely to tick some boxes for many United fans in search of some fresh threads, but the first responses on social media have been somewhat mixed, with the rather distinctive design clearly not being to everybody’s tastes.
While some fans on X described the kit as “super cool,” others were less certain – one fan opined that “I don’t know how I feel about it” while another simply asked “WTF is that?” alongside a vomiting emoji – making their thoughts pretty plain.
With the kit having only been leaked on Thursday, plenty of supporters won’t yet have laid eyes on it, but the initial reaction suggests that it could be somewhat divisive. No doubt plenty will make their way under United fans’ Christmas trees in a couple of months’ time regardless.
The official release date for the new kit is not yet known but Footy Headlines claim that the lifestyle retro shirt will be available “soon” – presumably in plenty of time to be bought by all those prospective Santas.