Oops! We’ve got an early peek at the new Aston Villa home shirt for the 2011/12 season thanks to a slight SNAFU on the JJB Sports website and… it’s… checked!

There had been strong whispers that the check motif would be a feature again this year, but it’s actually a two-toned effect in the body rather than the claret and blue check trim found on both the home and away 2010/11 shirts.

Other than that, it’s a claret shirt with blue sleeves and a return to the round neck. There’s really only so much you can do that’s a change from the previous season without being too radical. Although I’ve a feeling this may just be a touch too radical for some tastes.

Obviously these pictures were created before the FxPro deal was cancelled, hopefully any deal to replace them is done quickly to avoid the production problems we suffered last season.

So, what do you think?

UPDATE: JJB have removed items from their website and the club have issued the following statement:

John Greenfield, Head of Merchandising
The kit design is still being finalised and, while a prototype of the new kit has begun to be circulated, I would like to emphasise that it is not the finished product.

We look forward to finalising everything over coming weeks and we will keep our fans updated when we have further details and confirmation of the official launch and on-sale dates.

UPDATE 2: The Birmingham Mail has another quote from John Greenfield as the club look to cast doubt on the likelihood of this image being close to the final product:

John Greenfield, Head of Merchandising
It’s an early prototype and Nike have since made extensive changes to satisfy our needs. We have been in contact with Nike with regards to where JJB got this information from and an inquiry is taking place.