Inter reveal home kit for 2017-18 season

With Inter's season having long since finished, two questions have been occupying the minds of most supporters over the last few weeks:

• Which manager are we going to appoint and sack before Christmas ahead of next season?
• Which players are we going to overpay and develop a strong hatred for over the next twelve months?

But while these are both important questions to be mulling over, many Interisti have probably been considering a third one as well:

• What kind of bizarre colour and stripe scheme are Nike going to come up with for our kit next season?

While we might not know who will be managing or playing for us next season just yet, as of Thursday morning we do know what Inter's home kit will look like for the 2017-2018 season. (To be fair, most people probably saw the leaks on Twitter at the start of the week, but never mind.) This is because the club have officially unveiled it today via their website, with a series of pictures from all sorts of unorthodox angles and a long waffly article explaining the technology Nike used to design it.

So without further ado, here is our home strip for next season...

(NB: These photos have been taken from Inter's official Twitter account, Instagram profile and website. If you want more photos of the shirt up close, head here.)

And here's a brief explanation from that aforementioned article (which can be found in its entirety here): "Inter’s new Home kit draws a lot of inspiration from the city of Milan and exploits Dri-FIT technology. "The classic black-blue design has been revised with a modern look: the vertical stripes on the chest, have different widths and strongly recall the city’s new architecture. Among the details linked to the Club’s history is the inscription “Nerazzurri” in white on the inside of the collar. The shorts are black with the Inter logo on the front on the right and a white swoosh on the left. The kit is completed by the black socks provided with Nike Grip technology, feature the inscription “Inter” on the front and horizontal blue stripes on the calf. The players will be wearing the new Home kit on Sunday 28 May, at the last match of the Italian championship. The new Home kit will be on sale from today on nike.com, store.inter.it and at selected retailers." It then goes on to spew corporate prattle about laser-cut ventilation holes and sustainable innovation for two paragraphs, so the important part is that first section.

So what do you think? The reaction I have gauged on Twitter this morning is one of pleasant surprise, because the overwhelming majority of people had greeted the leaked concept images with disdain and in some cases disgust. They had expected it to look much worse in the flesh, but now it's been properly presented it seems to be more appealing for some reason. Naturally we need to see it on the pitch to get the full effect - and as that article mentions, Inter will be wearing this home strip in their final Serie A match against Udinese on Sunday night - but the general response has been positive. "It's not actually that bad" is the initial consensus. The colours have received a warm welcome, while the big sticking point for most is the strangeness of the stripe pattern - why on earth did they have to be asymmetrical like that?

Personally, I've never been too concerned over what our kit looks like. Sure, there are certain Inter shirts that look better than others, but I've always got used to whatever kit we wear after a couple of months or so - for instance, that black horror that we had in the 2014-15 season didn't bother me too much by the end. This might seem obvious but I think what really counts is the people that wear it and the memories attached to them. If we were to lift the Coppa Italia or return to the Champions League with these shirts, for instance, I am sure I would always have a positive memory of them. Alternatively, if either Angel Di Maria or Radja Nainggolan put one of them on, I suspect I could live with the weird funky stripes (warning: those links are not for the faint-hearted).

Thoughts?