Supplier: Umbro /
Sponsor: Etihad Airways Kit information Umbro made a new set of kits for Manchester City whilst they were in their second year of contract with the club. •
Home: The home kit was in City's traditional colours of sky blue and white in a classic design modelled on the club's outfits worn in the late 1960s. Featuring white cuffs and subtle shadow stripes on the body, the home strip was kitted out with white shorts and sky blue socks, which had a maroon turnover on the top. •
Away: The away kit was mainly navy with sky blue detailing and sported thin horizontal sky blue striping on the socks. The kit was described on the club's website as the "dark side of the moon". •
Third: The white third kit last season was retained, but was refitted with white shorts and socks, the latter sporting a red-and-black band to echo the sash on the body. •
Keeper: The last season goalkeeper kits were also retained, though a new all-black kit had been added to the collection for this season, to be used primarily with the home team kit. Last season's all-green home goalkeeper strip had been moved over to the away kit, although it was still used with the home team kit when the all-black kit was considered to be too close in colour to the opposition's strip (e.g.,
Chelsea and
Newcastle United). The gold-and-black goalkeeper strip that was used primarily with the away kit last season had been retained as an alternate (third) choice kit for the goalkeepers. As could be determined from the foregoing, which of the three team kits these goalkeeper strips were actually used with was not a hard and fast rule since any of these strips could be swapped around (if necessary) in order to avoid kit clashes with the opponents' team strips or the opponents' goalkeeper strips, as well as avoiding clashes with the strips worn by the match officials. On 2 February 2011, there was a minor "kit
faux pas" when the Manchester City team wore its regular home team kit for its away fixture against
Birmingham City at
St Andrew's, a fixture that usually required the visiting Manchester City team to use one of its alternative strips (in this case, its third team kit since the midnight blue away kit also represented a colour clash), as the primary home team colours of both sides combined a blue shirt with white shorts. No explanation had ever come as to why this mix-up occurred (because as per which kits were to be worn in which fixtures was determined before the season even began), or why the referee,
Kevin Friend, allowed two teams so similarly clad onto the pitch rather than insist that one of them first change its kit, although
Birmingham's 2010–11 home shirt features large elements of white. Since then, there have been multiple instances of City wearing sky blue against teams in
royal blue. ==Pre-season games==