PREMIER LEAGUE SEASON 2013-14 : The Best Ever Season In The League’s History

With some sensational football played in the English Premier League during this last weekend of 2013, it marks an end to the first half of an extraordinary season with the best yet to come in the second half. This season has been a thriller with so many new faces and the teams like Cardiff City, Crystal Palace and Hull City returning to the Premier league after long periods.
Also, it marked an end to the historic journey of most successful club manager ever in the history of English Premier League – SIR ALEX FERGUSON retired after spending an extraordinary 26.5 years at Manchester United where he won 13 Premier league titles, 5 FA Cups, 4 League Cups, 2 Champions League trophies and 1 FIFA Club World Cup in the span of a total 1500 games.

Some of the major reasons that this year’s league is the best ever in the history :

1. NEW FACES :
The top 3 clubs of 2012-13 season all see themselves now being managed by new faces which is a change for the very first time in the league’s history.

Manchester City, the 2012 Premier league champions now managed by the former Malaga coach - Manual Pellegrini
Chelsea, 2012 Champions league winners now managed by their previous successful manager, the “Special One – Jose Mourinho”
Manchester United, the current Premier league champions , after 27 years now see themselves managed by the fellow Scotsman and former Everton coach David Moyes.

Never in so many seasons have this much of new talent being bought in together in one single year in the English Premier League. Yes there have been major signings in the past years, like Shinji Kagawa, Eden Hazard, Christian Benteke and Michu if we consider the last year. But this year, we have seen an extraordinary addition of skill and creativity with the likes of Christian Eriksen, Jesus Navas, Mesut Ozil, Martin Stekelenburg, Willian, Samuel Eto’o, Fernandinho, Negredo, Roberto Soldado and many more all together in one single season which certainly is a rare event.

Additionally, absence of the world record exit of the Tottenham winger Gareth Bale to Real Madrid was much talked about at the starting of the season.

2. THE HUGE FINANCES
Never has the Premier league seen so much money spent in the transfer window in a single season. This year, there was a total of £630 million spending in the summer transfer window by all the English clubs thus overtaking the previous record £500 million spent in 2008. Such a huge sum is crazy and strengthens the fact that this league undoubtedly is the best in the world. This all has happened due to the large Financial package that all the Premier League clubs received at the end of last season when the Premier League signed a deal with the TV rights to bring in more money and viewership into the game.

3. TITLE CONTENDERS
Gone is the time when only Manchester United and Arsenal were the only 2 clubs seriously considered as the title contenders for the league with Chelsea having enjoyed their time in between.

But now, we have seen the rise of Manchester City who in 2012 were the Premier League champions, a feat they achieved after 44 years.
Then there’s Liverpool who has become a serious title contender due to the sheer single handed effort and magic of their impeccable striker Luis Suarez.

Finally there’s Tottenham HotSpurs who has been rising from quite a long time now, mostly due to the likes of Bale but even after Bale’s exit this summer and with the addition of players Andres Villas Boas, the former Spurs manager, made in the transfer window, Spurs were the team most talked about in the league.

However, amidst huge discussions and expectations, Manchester United has surprisingly fallen to the 6th spot and Tottenham to the 7th spot currently with a stunningly shocking sustainablility of Everton in the 4th spot at the end of this year under their new manager Roberto Martinez.

The current league table standings clearly show how tight the competition is going to be this season with 6 teams still in contention for the league, only an 8 point difference between the top team Arsenal and the 6th team Manchester United with still half of the season left to be played.

4. WONDERFUL MOMENTS AND UPSETS
Be it the superb form of Southampton in the early periods of the season, Liverpool’s stunning loss to Southampton at their own home, Manchester United facing 2 straight home defeats at Old Trafford after 10 years, Manchester City’s shock losses to Cardiff and Aston Villa, comeback by Cardiff against Manchester United in the last minute, comeback by Sunderland against Cardiff in the last minute, Luis Suarez’s wonderful volleys in his 19 goals in just 12 matches, Arsenal’s stunning loss to Aston Villa in their first match this season, Sandro’s stunning strike against Manchester United, Suarez stunning curling free kick against Everton, Hull City registering a 6-0 win over Fulham, Manchester City’s 6-0 rout of Tottenham followed by Liverpool’s 5-0 rout of Tottenham leading to the sacking of Andres Villas Boas, sacking of Martin Jol as Fulham manager, sacking of Malky Mackay as Cardiff manager, sacking of Steve Clarke as West Brom manager, Gus Poyet appointed as the new Sunderland manager, so so much all has been witnessed in just 1710 minutes of the game played by every single team throughout this season.

Moreover, there has been the revolutionary rising of some extraordinary new talents of future such as Adnan Januzaj, Ross Barkley, Adam Lallana, Luke Shaw and many many more still to be added in the list.

So many moments, so many surprises, shocks, wins, defeats, draws, injuries, magical substitutions, the red cards, free kicks, corners, penalties, the goals and the saves, the fans and the celebrations, everything this season has just been a treat to watch and it is so hard to believe that only half of the season is over and the better half is yet to come in this new coming year. I am sure I have missed a no.of notable moments, but this is what makes this season the BEST of all, there are just too many of them to remember.