Why Serie A might be the most competitive of the big leagues next season

Serie A has struggled for the past few seasons through a lack of any real competition for the title. Inter Milan's financial power, other sides financial woes and Juventus's relegation to Serie B all added up to the make the league a pretty eventful race to the finish. This season however has the potential to one of the most interesting in years with potential 7 clubs in contention.

Milan target Montolivo

A.C. Milan 
The current title holders have added to their existing talent my addressing the needs of their squad from last season. The addition of Taye Taiwo from Marseille on a free in a fantastic addition and will tackle the problems that the club have had at left back for the past few seasons. Philippe Mexes from Roma again on a free adds depth to the centre back position allowing Alessandro Nesta to player fewer games as he winds down. Stephan El Shaarawy, from Genoa, adds blistering speed the likes of which the Milanese giants have not had for a few seasons. The only addition that needs to be made is that of a central midfielder to try and replace the departed Andrea Pirlo and with talks with Ricardo Montolivo in advanced stages, that whole will be filled up soon.

Inter Milan 
The other Milanese club struggled last season as first Rafa Benitez and then Leonardo were unsuccessful in retaining the Serie A crown. New manager Gian Piero Gasperini will bring a new and fresh approach with a 3-4-3 that will require a refreshing of the squad. Yuto Nagamoto, Jonathan and Ricardo Alvarez all add a much needed injection to the squad which will surely be added to. The likes of Goran Pandev, Maicon and Christian Chivu will be shown the door to make way. The big deal will be Wesley Sneijder with the Dutchman looking to be on his way to Utd unable to fit into the new look formation. With new additions and a spine that contains Julio Cesar, Javier Zanetti, Lucio and Samuel Etoo, Inter will be challenging as always.

Napoli

Napoli captain Hamsik

The Naples side finished last season in 3rd position qualifying for the Champions League under Walter Mazzari. The side had a fresh, free flowing style of football that took Serie A by storm and but for running out of gas towards the end of the season, would have been challenging for the title at the end. Thus far they have been able to stave off bids for Edinson Cavani, Ezequiel Lavezzi and Marek Hamsik and the ability to retain all three of these will be like signing three new players. The additions of Mario Santana and Gokhan Inler in particular will help the side in their effort to try and remain in the top 4 and push on. Inler will provide a genuine box to box midfielder that the side missed last season and stave off running out of steam as the season comes to its conclusion.

Udinese
Udiniese managed to finish 4th last year after a fantastic season for the closely knit side with few individual stars. The club have already lost captain Gokhan Inler to Napoli and look set to lose talisman Alexis Sanchez to Barcelona and therefore one might think that they are going to struggle to compete next season as they have in this previous one. The club have built themselves on being a selling club that scout the World for younger and undiscovered talent, bringing them in for little and then selling them when it is time to do so. the £15million received for Inler along with the estimated £30-£35million to be receive for Sanchez will go along way towards ensuring Udinese challenge next season.

Lazio 
The club have already added Djibril Cisse and Frederico Marchetti and are looking to add further with Ibrahim Afellay of Barcelona and Frederico Marched of Utd being talked about as potential additions. As with the likes of Napoli and Udinese, if the club are able to hang on to their big players, in particualr Hernanes and Mauro Zarate they should compete. Further wiley additions like German international Miroslav Klose might just be enough to keep the capital side up there.

Roma 
Roma are perhaps the side who are going to play the greatest part in shaping things up with the investment that has occurred at the Giallorossi. The club have hung on to the likes of David Pizarro and Daniele De Rossi  and the additions of Erik Lamela and Marco D'Alessandro add real quality to the Romans. The investment put in by Thomas DiBenneto means that the signings have not stopped there. Martin Stekelenberg and Bokan Krkic look to be coming into achieve the vision of new manager Luis Enrique.

Juventus 

Juventus bound Rossi

Along with Roma, The Old Lady are investing heavily to get back into title contention, Antonio Conte brings in a new approach that adopts a more fluid style than that previously adopted at the club. The Swiss pair of Reto Ziegler and Stephen Lichtsteiner have been brought in from Sampdoria and Lazio respectively to tackle the problems that the club have had in the full back positions for the past few years. The search for fire power up front continues with both Giuseppe Rossi and Sergio Aguero being tackled about. The club is looking to shift the dead weight of Amauri, Luca Toni and Felipe Melo amongst others as it adopts a new approach and seeks to get itself back in contention for its first title in 9 years.