The new manager of Barcelona, Luis Enrique, is looking to have quite a few superstar players at his disposal in his debut season at Camp Nou.

The three big names whose services Enrique is looking to secure this summer are Marquinhos (Brazil), Luis Suarez (Uruguay) and Juan Cuadrado (Colombia).

The 44-year old former Spanish striker is a great fan of all the above mentioned players and is planning to place a bid for them pretty soon. He is believed to be ready to spend an amount in excess of 100 million Euros for the trio.

Croatian midfielder Ivan Rakitic has been one of best players in the Spanish league for the last few years, but he really came into a league of its own last season. The 26-year-old was a major reason towards Sevilla not only finishing fifth in the league, but also lifting the Europa league as well. He has now sealed a £ 16 million move to Barcelona. There has been a lot of rumours in the last few days that Barcelona would be bringing in the 26-year-old has replacement for Cesc Fabregas, who is expected to leave the club for € 33 million.

Bayern Munich captain Philipp Lahm has stated that the German club never wanted to become the next Barcelona amidst claims that they have been trying to replicate the style of play following the arrival of Guardiola. Bayern Munich been playing a possession style of football this year, which is a strong deviation from the incredibly successful method devised by Jupp Heynckes. The counter-attacking style of football reaped rich rewards for the club last season, as they won a famous treble including the Champions League.

Barcelona dominated their La Liga match against Granada as they enjoyed having more than 80% of possession and launched over 20 shots at goal at the goalkeeper Orestis Karnezis but it wasn’t enough for the team of Gerardo Martino to even rescue a single point as they lost 1-0.

This defeat has allowed Real Madrid on snatching the 2nd place spot of the Spanish League while some fans are even in doubt if Barcelona will be able to recover and protect the league trophy for another year.

The latest sanction that Barcelona has received will not allow the Spanish club on either selling or buying any players for the upcoming 14 months, they will however try and appeal against the punishment but if things do not go as planned it will be a huge blow for the team of Gerardo Martino.

Barcelona managed to put began to their recent poor run of form to manage a comfortable 4-1 aggregate win over Manchester City in the Champions League to qualify for the quarter-finals of the competition.

Lionel Messi and Dani Alves scored the goals for the Catalan club, while they conceded a late goal from Vincent Kompany that appeared more like a consolation for the visitors. Unlike in the last few seasons, Barcelona are not the favourites to win the competition this season. This is primarily due to the inconsistent form they have been showing under Gerardo Martino.

The resignation of Sandro Rossell from his role of being the president of Barcelona arrived when the investigation of Neymar’s transfer from Santos was being made and according to Rossell, he was receiving too much pressure from the media concerning everything that was being launched at him at everything came from Neymar’s transaction.

Rossell stepped down from his position after a judge had accepted a case which was accusing him of money misappropriation.

The manager of Barcelona FC, Gerardo Martino, surprised a lot of people by not including his two best players Lionel Messi and Neymar in the starting line up for the all important game against Atletico Madrid which took place yesterday.

Cesc Fabregas, the Barca midfielder, has come back to training as he continues his convalescence from a knee wound, stated that the La Liga leaders earlier on Monday. Cese damaged his right knee ligaments in the 4 - 1 victory against Real Betis on 10th November and he had to withdraw from the national squad for friendly matches against South Africa and Equatorial Guinea.

The prospect of Barcelona playing long ball football looked highly unlikely a few years ago under the management of Guardiola. Even when faced with extremely defensive opposition, Barcelona struck with their philosophy of passing the ball in order to open the opposition.

New manager Gerardo Martino, though, has brought in different ideas since taking over the club in the summer. Barcelona were recently extremely frustrated in the Champions league match against Ajax. This resulted in the team playing a couple of long balls, which has come under intense criticism from the fans and media.