West Ham United have officially unveiled their new home kit for the upcoming 2022/23 Premier League season. The Hammers revealed the strip on June 9, 2022, and somewhat interestingly, there was no Declan Rice in the list of players chosen to model the shirt.
The kit has been made by Umbro and celebrates 30 years of Billy Bonds’ promotion winning side (a nod to 1992). It features a scratched detail graphic on the sleeves, as can be seen in the pics below, and was launched with the tagline “Made for the massive moments”
The Hammers finished 7th in the 21/22 season, just below the league’s traditional top six, who also occupied spots 1-6 in the table.
David Moyes’ side had a pretty decent campaign, beating Liverpool in the league (only one other side managed that feat) and drawing with champions Man City. They eliminated City from the League Cup and also reached the semifinals of the Europa League before going down to eventual winners Frankfurt.
Qualifying for Europe seemed to hurt the Hammers in the league back in the mid 00’s- they went from 9th in the season they qualified, to 15th in the season when they actually played.
In the most recently concluded 21/22 season though, one could argue that West Ham could’ve made a real challenge for fourth had they not had any other distractions- they even occupied the position at one stage during the league season. However a thin squad, coupled with injuries to key players and some tough EL fixtures (they played the likes of Sevilla and Lyon) made it a battle on several fronts that David Moyes’ squad couldn’t quite cope with, despite their best efforts.
The lack of reinforcements in January (especially in defence and upfront) perhaps cost them what was a genuine opportunity at Champions League footy, either by winning the EL or by finishing fourth in the league. The likes of Declan Rice were played into the ground- he, as mentioned above, is not in the promo pics. Some reports claim that Rice wasn’t simply available on the day of the shoot, but for West Ham’s captain and most important player to be not featuring will obviously increase talk of a potential exit, especially with Man Utd and Chelsea interested. However, the likes of Bowen, Antonio, Benrahma and Lanzini were all present.
The Hammers could’ve even finished 6th and had a chance at the EL again- indeed, United tried their best to hand the position to them, but a final day loss to Brighton saw the London outfit having to settle for 7th and the lower Conference League.
Two versions of shorts have been released along with the home kit (blue is the primary shorts colour), while goalkeeper Fabianski will be seen sporting a green top under the sticks. For example, the Hammers wore claret shorts against Sevilla in the EL last season.
