rating every premier league team’s 21/22 lineup graphics

And we’re off! The Premier League season is underway and with it, a chance to see how the top 20 sides in the English football pyramid are set to fare in the nine months ahead. Thinkpiece upon thinkpiece on which signings are making an instant impact, the new ones to watch on the managerial scene, and which sides look most likely to take the Barclays by storm between now and May next year. Everyone’s an analyst now, and the content this is producing is great.

That said, with everyone’s focus on the matches themselves, there has been one glaring omission from coverage. Everyone’s eyes are on them before the game, but as soon as we hit the opening whistle, it’s an afterthought. No further reason to care, right? Wrong. The lineup graphics teams use to announce their squads before each game are a valuable resource and quite frankly, they’ve flown under the radar for too long. If you’ve actually clicked on this article, then you’re searching for the most important, hard-hitting analysis you deserve of the Premier League kickoff weekend. And with a combined zero years of experience across digital art and graphic design, I believe I’m exactly the person to deliver it.

So let’s rate each lineup graphic that a Premiership team tweeted from their official account this past weekend, examining both the information conveyed and how they conveyed it. That seems like fun! Mondays are great.

Arsenal

Okay, this is a good start. Matching the colours to the third kit is a nice touch which I’m curious to see how many other teams follow suit on. The lack of shirt numbers or an indicator of the captain is unfortunate, but practically every other box is checked. Won’t be the most informative graphic on the list, but certainly a safe bet to be one of the easiest on the eyes. Rating: B

Aston Villa

Villa take a bit of a unique approach here, with the lineup graphic stretched out by a sponsor logo, oversized header and just a whole heap of empty space. It doesn’t really work. Especially on Twitter, where the graphic is cropped to focus more on the Cazoo logo than the lineup itself. Like playing Buendia in the centre, it’s probably best to abandon this one as a failed experiment, lads. Rating: D

Brentford

The font isn’t exactly the nicest, but it’s a minor complaint on what is a very acceptable lineup graphic. The shirt numbers are absent again, but otherwise it’s simple and effective — much like their victory on Friday night. Rating: B+

Brighton & Hove Albion

No. Absolutely not. Brighton are the first team on this list to commit the cardinal sin of putting the players in shirt number order rather than ordering by position. They’ve then somehow managed to compound this by not even including the squad numbers on the graphic, leaving you temporarily confused as to why Bissouma and Maupay are playing in central defence and at right back respectively, or wondering what Shane Duffy is doing up top. The blank space on the left is hardly inspiring either, just stick a player render in there or something! At first glance it could be worse, but conceptually this is horrible. Rating: F

Burnley

Oh my god, squad numbers! Finally! I was starting to think noone was actually going to bother. The less said about this font the better though, the spacing is just a bit much on the starting eleven. The header is a bit oversized, and again we’re missing a captain, but honestly after the Brighton mess I’ll take what I can get. Rating: C

Chelsea

This is sleek. There’s very little to really criticise here at all, with only the bizarre elongated N in the “lineup” header sticking out. The space is used well — if you’re not going to include a player render then keeping everything centred is a sensible way to go. Rating: B

Crystal Palace

Palace do a nice job of incorporating the red and blue of their away kit into the design here, and the end result is certainly pleasing on the eyes. If the coloured squares for team badges are to persist through the season then there may be room for some clashes, but it works well enough here. The font doesn’t do James McArthur many favours, but again, it’s a minor complaint. Rating: B+

Everton

If I’m learning one thing about my personal preference, it’s that darker colour themes are definitely sitting better with me in these graphics. Everton do a really good job here, checking practically every box. Almost too good of a job, with Demarai Gray seeming detached from the rest of the graphic in a way that other player renders haven’t. It’s possible that it’s just the pointing, making him seem just a bit too 3D for a 2D graphic. I’ll give Everton the benefit of the doubt here, I think, because everything else comes off great. Rating: B+

Leeds United

Oh now we’re talking. For the first time in this list, a team not just gives us the lineup but a formation to boot. See how easy this is? The consequence is that the names themselves are a little small for the starting eleven, but it’s a small price to pay for a real quality lineup graphic. Rating: A

Leicester City

Leicester almost do a great job here. Following Leeds on this list was always going to be tough, but all the space on this graphic is used and used well. Not a single inch is wasted or overused, but whether intentional or not, they appear to have forgotten the substitutes. It’s a unique decision on this list, and I don’t get why. On Twitter, the substitutes are just typed in a follow-up tweet to the starting eleven. It comes off looking like they just forgot. Strange one. Rating: B-

Liverpool

The design on Liverpool’s lineup graphic is class. Just adds an extra touch of personality over these block colour backgrounds. If it wasn’t for the slightly off placement of the substitutes header and — once again — the lack of shirt numbers, this would be the only A-ranked graphic so far without a formation present. As it is, it just falls short. Rating: B+

Manchester City

It’s an odd choice of render for poor old Jack Grealish, who seems like he’s trying to adjust the captain’s armband he’s forgotten he doesn’t wear anymore. The fading at the bottom is an odd choice too which doesn’t quite come off, but everything else here is pretty acceptable. As long as the space is used well, blue and white is just an impossible combination to get wrong. Rating: B

Manchester United

Our second offenders so far for this awful decision to list the players in shirt number order. Last season Manchester United caught flak for this, and actually had a guy who would edit the lineup graphic in position order in reply to the announcement tweets. I like to think they’ve put the names at an angle specifically to spite that one person. Partially because it makes it even funnier that he’s still doing it anyway. The greyscale render is a nice touch but that’s about it. Rating: E

Newcastle United

Newcastle veer a little close to letting the player render overpower the lineup here, but just manage to steer out of the skid. Black text for the subs could have been thought out better, but I like the black-to-gold gradient background a great deal. Newcastle could have easily overused the Fun88 blue here and made the graphic look as bad as their home kit, but fortunately, bullet dodged. Rating: C+

Norwich City

You have to hand it to Norwich for trying. The formation graphic is back, and while the captaincy and shirt numbers are gone, a Norwich supporter or neutral observer still has that extra bit of insight into how the team will be setting up. It’s just the images where I feel it falls short — I feel like eleven John Cenas are asking me if I’m sure about something. Rating: B-

Southampton

Absolutely exquisite. There’s almost nothing really to say because Southampton nail everything they need to here. Easy on the eyes, no crucial information missed out, great use of the space available and every trap that other teams’ graphics have fallen into are evaded here. Just super. Shame Everton ripped them apart. Rating: A

Tottenham Hotspur

Spurs trade a lot of the graphical extravagance for a pretty minimal lineup graphic, but with a couple of flourishes to make it work. The handwritten style of the substitutes header works nicely enough, and the shadow on Son’s render adds a level of depth that makes him feel much more a part of the lineup graphic than a lot of other players we’ve seen so far. Sometimes a little goes a long way. Rating: A

Watford

Wait, what? You can put team news on your lineup graphic? Like, that’s allowed? Why isn’t everyone doing this?! Talk about a game-changer. Watford look at the choice between quality and quantity here and say “fuck it, we’ll take both”. We have the lineup, we have the formation graphic, we have subs and a player render that doesn’t overpower anything else. The Hornets badge is nice. But I can’t say enough good things about the team news being included. You’d think it could leave the graphic with just a little too much going on, but it comes off fantastically. The end result is more than just a lineup graphic, it has a bit of a matchday programme feel to it and comes off like a real labour of love. You can’t beat this. Rating: A+

West Ham United

A side-effect of West Ham’s kit this year is that every render seems like something out of a Ralph Lauren catalogue. The fading works better here than on City’s graphic, perhaps helped by everything being kept closer together. You could still shave a good chunk of empty space off the bottom, but otherwise this is another simple but effective bit of work. Rating: B

Wolverhampton Wanderers

What’s the point? What do you gain out of making this a video file? At least when MLS side Inter Miami, on my radar this year due to Indiana Vassilev’s loan there, release their lineup announcements in video form, they actually make it worth being more than just a jpg. With this, I guess Wolves just think you really need to see Adama Traore look up like you’ve just tricked him into thinking his shoelaces are untied? Some stylistic choices in this list haven’t worked, some have worked incredibly, but this one… it just seems pointless. Oh, the graphic itself is fine. Whatever. Rating: Y?