I’m not normally the sort of person who gives a huge amount of thought to the kit each season. As long as it does the basics (and, to be fair, not all of them have) - play home games in red & white, you can read the numbers on the back of the shirt clearly, the players can see each other in a crowd etc. - then I’m not normally that arsed either way.
However, with a new kit launch every 2 seasons, it’s quite difficult to achieve much variation on the red & white stripes (especially with the same manufacturer and sponsor each season), so I think a deviation every few cycles is a good thing.
Unless I’m missing something obvious, then it must be 25 years since we had anything other than traditional red & white stripes. During 1994/95, when we actually had two different home kits during the season if I remember rightly. Both of which were quite a divergence away from the more traditional red & white stripes.
So a change for one kit is probably overdue, and I think it looks good.