THE Arsenal home shirt for the 2012-13 season pays tribute to the North London club’s visionary past and bright future, inspired by 126 years of innovation and style.

Arsenal Football Club has long been the benchmark for innovation and change. It was Herbert Chapman – the club’s manager from 1925 to 1934 – who championed the use of floodlights, numbered shirts and white footballs in the modern game. And Nike, official kit supplier and leaders in design and innovation, has unveiled a home kit that pays tribute to club heritage whilst offering players and fans a modern and stylish new uniform.

Nike’s most environmentally friendly kit ever honors club heritage.

More Nike x Arsenal 2012/13 Home Kit Pictures after the Jump……..

The shirt boasts the traditional red block body with white sleeves but fans will find a new twist to the kit; a blue (obsidian) hoop detail on the collar, sleeves and socks.

Blue (obsidian) has long been used as a third colour on Arsenal’s shirts throughout their illustrious history and features in the Arsenal crest; and it’s inclusion in the kit for the 2012-13 season nods to that past but gives it a fresh, bold look.

Heritage details include an inner neck graphic which reads; “Victoria Concordia Crescit (the club’s latin logo meaning victory through harmony). The outer neck graphic is a nod to Chapman’s famous ‘WM formation’ that galvanised and shaped the modern game.

As is traditional, the new shorts are white but with a WM formation on the side, and ‘Arsenal’ in the back of the waistband.  The home kit socks are white with red and blue (obsidian) hoop detail.

Whilst the kit combines modern sport and youth style to give the club an iconic new look, Nike’s innovation gives the team our most technologically advanced kit to aid athlete comfort and performance.

The new home kit is made from Nike’s ground-breaking recycled polyester, making it Nike’s most environmentally friendly kit ever produced.  Each kit (shirt and shorts) is made using up to thirteen recycled plastic water bottles.  This innovative manufacturing process reduces energy consumption by up to 30% compared to manufacturing traditional polyester. Since 2010 Nike has used an estimated 1115 million recycled plastic bottles to create its high performance kits.

The kits are made out of 23% lighter fabric with 20% stronger knit structure than Nike’s previous kits and feature Nike Dri-FIT technology to wick moisture away from athletes to help keep them cool and dry on-pitch.

Kits have bonded re-enforced t-bar junctions that support critical seams on the shirt and shorts and inner welded seams with a flat finish construction to improve comfort and performance.  Temperature regulation is helped by ventilation zones, consisting of a series of tiny laser cut holes from the under arms to the waistband, allowing air to circulate to keep players comfortable.

Nike Pro Combat base-layers are used by athletes to compliment playing kits to further improve comfort and increase protection from injury. Whilst fans and players can enjoy the Nike’s Arsenal Sportswear collection off the pitch, inspired by the club’s heritage.

The Arsenal and France right back Bacary Sagna, who was ruled out of Euro 2012 after breaking his fibula on Saturday, thinks Norwich City’s Bradley Johnson deliberately stepped on his leg.

Sagna collapsed in the first half of Arsenal’s 3-3 Premier League draw with Norwich shortly after Johnson trod on his leg, the same one he broke earlier in the season.

“I think he did it on purpose,” the 29-year-old told the sports daily L’Equipe on Sunday. “He stepped on my leg. Play continues, I get back on my feet. And when I tried to control the ball, I felt a crack, just like the first time at Tottenham.”

More from Bacary Sagna on Bradley Johnson’s Tackle after the Jump…….

“He stepped right where the plate was. I think the plate pressured [the bone]. It’s a neat break, just above the plate.”

Sagna was confident he would return from the injury. “That’s how it is. It’s football. It has happened to others before me,” he added. “I came back once, I will come back a second time. Even stronger.”

France are drawn in Group D with England, Sweden and the co-hosts Ukraine.