6 Essential Elements for a Classic Premier League Season

The Premier League is the biggest and the best league in the world, and in 2013-14 it looks set to produce yet another classic campaign.

The influx of top-class managers and players over the summer virtually guarantee a season to remember.

Jose Mourinho has returned to Chelsea, David Moyes has replaced the irreplaceable Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, Manuel Pellegrini has taken over the hot-seat at Manchester City and Roberto Martinez has slipped in at Everton.

Add in Brendan Rodgers at Liverpool, Andre Villas-Boas at Tottenham Hotspur and Arsene Wenger at Arsenal and you only have one manager, Wenger, with more than one season under his belt at a top-club.

Then all you have to factor is the players—Gareth Bale, Luis Suarez, Wayne Rooney, Robin van Persie—and you can see why the top clubs in the world all want a piece of the EPL.

The Eredivisie in Holland can boast the highest goals-per-game rate, the German Bundesliga may boast the highest crowd attendances, and Champions League holders Bayern Munich, and La Liga in Spain may boast the two best players in football—Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.

However, there is no beating the EPL in terms of excitement and honesty of endeavor.

Here, Bleacher Report offers six essential elements that could make the 2013-14 Premier League campaign a classic.

Who do you think will win the EPL in 2014, and who will be relegated?

Leave your comments, suggestions and Premier League thoughts and predictions in the section below!

The Players

Most of the great players in Europe's league's are centered around the same teams. In Spain, Real Madrid and Barcelona have a monopoly on the world class talent. In Germany, Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, the 2013 Champions League finalists, contain almost the entire German national team. And in Italy it is more or less the same with Juventus and AC Milan.

That simply cannot be said of the Premier League.

The league's top players are spread around more than any other top flight.

Tottenham Hotspur can boast the PFA, Football Writers and Youth Player of the Year, Gareth Bale. They also have the France goalkeeper Hugo Lloris and Belgium's Jan Vertonghen.

Liverpool can call on Steven Gerrard and, for last season at least, the superb Luis Suarez. 

Arsenal have the best young midfielders in the league with Jack Wilshere and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and the Spanish genius that is Santi Cazorla.

Chelsea have Frank Lampard, Juan Mata, Petr Cech, David Luiz, Eden Hazard and Oscar, not to mention new signing Andre Schurrle.

Manchester City have David Silva, Vincent Kompany, Fernandinho, Alvaro Negredo, Stevan Jovetic and Sergio Aguero to name but a few.

And we have not even come to the champions, Manchester United.

David Moyes' team contains Robin van Persie, Wayne Rooney, Michael Carrick, Nemanja Vidic, David De Gea, the immortal Ryan Giggs and a squad that individually could command a place in almost every other Premier League team.

That's just the top six teams covered.

We have yet to mention Everton's Leighton Baines and Marouane Fellaini, Southampton's Luke Shaw and Rickie Lambert, Swansea City's Michu, Norwich City's Robert Snodgrass and Aston Villa's Christian Benteke.

We take a lot for granted with the Premier League, and sometimes we just forget what talent is at hand.

This is further backed up by the fact that at the end of last season the Premier League had more players to have played in a World Cup than in any other league.

The Teams

Besides having talented players, the Premier League will arguably bring the greatest collection of team talent to European football.

One look at the list of top countries shows that there are truly great teams out there. The likes of Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Real Madrid may be better than the best the Premier League can offer at the moment, but in terms of overall talent and excitement the English top-flight is the best.

Manchester United, as champions, will once again be the team to beat. However, 2011-12 champions Manchester City will he hot on their heels. As will Chelsea with the returning Jose Mourinho.

Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur will do their level best to make a major contribution in the direction of the title and Liverpool and Everton will be hoping to reclaim a spot in Europe.

That is seven teams with realistic chances of finishing in the top four, and five with real hopes of winning the title.

No other league in Europe can boast that amount of challengers.

Add in the fact that in any given game any team can beat anyone, and it is easy to see why the Premier League is so exciting to watch.

The Managers

Last season the Premier League boasted the highest number of successful coaches in the world.

Five managers from the Premier League had won major league or major European trophies. Sir Alex Ferguson, Wenger, Villas-Boas, Roberto Mancini and Rafael Benitez had all won either league titles in other jurisdictions or major European honors.

Mancini was sacked at Manchester City and replaced by the superb Manuel Pellegrini and Benitez has finally departed from Chelsea only to be replaced by Mourinho.

In case you are wondering, the Bundesliga is second with just three major trophy-winning managers.

Then look at the other managers also on the trophy hunt.

Brendan Rodgers, Michael Laudrup, Mauricio Pochettino, Steve Clarke and not to mention Moyes lead the brigade of good young managers all vying for a berth at the top table.

With each and every manager capable of pulling out all the stops on any given weekend, the Premier League is the place to be for a young coach.

The Finances

Money makes the football world go around and around.

In terms of finance, no other league in the world can compete with the Premier League.

The Premier League may be derided as being an all encompassing monetary beast, but there is no doubting that it looks after its clubs. 

Spanish football struggles to deal with Real Madrid and Barcelona sitting atop their pyramid as they look down on the peasants below. German football, although rising in popularity, cannot penetrate the same global markets at the Premier League, and Serie A will never offer the same kind of competition.

Starting with the 2013-14 campaign, the Premier League has secured a TV rights deal worth over £3 billion for the next three seasons.

In short, that means that each and every single EPL team will earn around £60 million per season from television revenue alone.

Those finances will give intelligent Premier League managers an advantage over their worldwide counterparts for the next three years in terms of transfer fees and wages.

The league may be down in Europe at the moment but don't expect that to continue, and expect big name signings over the coming years.

The effect can already be seen this season with Tottenham Hotspur strengthening significantly, Chelsea adding to their midfield ranks and Manchester City snapping up a number of forwards.

And that's just at the top of the table.

Norwich City have signed intelligently, as have West Ham, Southampton and Aston Villa.

"Build it and they will come," as the tagline to the movie Field of Dreams says, and the Premier League have most certainly built it. 

 

The Matches

Without managers, players would be aimless.

Without players, there would be no teams.

Without teams, there would be no matches.

Without matches, there would be no league.

There is not another league on this Earth that can compete with the Premier League for excitement, unbelievable stories and legacy in terms of its matches.

Next season, the Premier League will contain six teams from London, two from Wales, two from Liverpool, two from the North East, two from Manchester, two from Birmingham, and teams from Norwich, Hull, Stoke and Southampton.

In short, there will be 70 derbies where everything will be laid on the line. Then you have to factor in the rivalries between the likes of Liverpool and Manchester United, United and Chelsea, Arsenal and pretty much every other team in the league, Spurs and Man City, Southampton and Spurs.

The amount of top matches is almost endless, and each is almost guaranteed to be more exciting than the last.

The Fans

It's easy to forget the fans in all the excitement surrounding the start of the new season.

Between all the adulation, fawning and parasitic kowtowing towards clubs, players and managers, fans are usually the ones left outside the tent.

It is more than worth remembering that without the fans, there would be no football.

The reaction and support the millions of watching fans give their teams is one of the main reasons that football is the best, most exciting and most important reality TV show on the planet.

No other medium can offer such highs, lows and pure unbridled emotion in such a short period of time.

Fans are the very lifeblood of the sport. They will be there long after all the badge-kissing, tackle-shirking, attention-grabbing primadonnas have left for pastures new.

They contribute towards the rivalries. They make gods of players. They decide the fate of managers. And they hold the finances of the club they support in their hands.

Fans are easily the most essential element of any successful season.