Arsenal wore red shorts against Watford on Sunday, but the lack of a white-short kit clash left many fans wondering why.

If your team usually wears white shorts, then the ideal opponent would surely be one wearing black shorts. There’s no chance you could mistake one for the other.

Yet, when Arsenal faced black-shorted Watford on Sunday, they opted to wear red, to the confusion of those watching.

ArsenalShirt report that Arsenal have confirmed the decision was a commercial one, made in partnership with Adidas. The players were supportive of the move.

That doesn’t entirely clear up the confusion, as the red shorts aren’t actually on sale. So it evidently wasn’t a move to try and sell more shorts.

Instead, the likely explanation is that the change of shorts simply generates more public engagement with the kit as a whole.

You likely see more pictures shared during these games, more tweets about the kit, more talk about it in the TV commentary, more articles on DailyCannon.com.

All of that probably leads to more shirt sales, even if the shirt is the same one the team wears most weekends.

There’s an alternative theory that perhaps Arsenal and Adidas are testing the waters to see whether fans would support a permanent red-short kit, which is also possible.

But you’d imagine that would provoke a lot more backlash than just doing it for a game.