New England kit revealed by Joey Barton

It's been a long time since Joey Barton was anywhere near an England shirt, but the QPR midfielder has today leaked an image of the brand new strip the Three Lions will wear in next Wednesday's friendly with the Netherlands.

Barton spilled the image via his Twitter feed, presumably after attending some sort of Umbro preview (We're not ruling out a break-and-enter at this point). The sportswear brand can't be too annoyed with the leak, however, as the microblogging voice piece of the western world later posted an additional picture of the new strip. And now Umbro have posted more pictures on their blog:

The new red and white design has already courted plenty of controversy the FA's latest contract with Umbro stipulates that the national kit will be changed roughly every 18 months, rather than the previous two-year cycle. This means the current strip (a natty white and blue number) has only had a shelf life of eight games, and the new strip will get the elbow midway through World Cup 2014 qualification.

The complaints from people who object to changing their clothes more frequently than two years at a time were so strong that the FA released an explanatory statement.