Bengaluru, IndiaLa Liga giants FC Barcelona faced a struggling season last year when they surprisingly crashed out of the Champions League in the Semi-final round and finished in second place in La Liga to lose the title to Real Madrid.

All leagues special site

The Catalan side is now eager to improve their squad and already announced Ernesto Valverde as their new manager after Luis Enrique's departure.

They are now ready to spread their wings to acquire their probable targets and a surprising name has come into the air that is Brazilain midfielder Paulinho.

Paulinho, 28, joined Chinese side Guangzhou Evergrande from Tottenham Hotspur in 2015 for €14m after only making an unimpressive 67 appearances for the Premier League side during two years in England.

However, since his move to the Asian Continent, the midfielder has again found his feet and already has scored 25 goals in 87 appearances for them.

His impressive performance has again reestablished him as a key player for Brazilian national team under new coach Tite, where he recently scored a hat-trick in a World Cup qualifier against Uruguay.

However, to Barcelona's misery, his former international coach and now the coach of Guangzhou Scolari denied any interest from Barcelona and clearly suggested that they won't let him go and he is not for sale.

Scolari also added that since Chinese league has introduced a strong tax rule of signing foreign players, it is now hard for them to let go their best players at the moment.

"Paulinho will not leave Guangzhou," he told Mundo Deportivo. "He has a release clause of €40 million.

"And at the moment it's not easy for Chinese teams to lose a big player because it's difficult and expensive to sign a replacement with the new taxes that we have to pay."

Barcelona reportedly want to sign a right-back, a central midfielder and a forward to challenge for the title next season and apparently already have begun talks to sign Paris Saint German midfielder Marco Veratti and Brazilian striker Lucas Lima from Santos.

Whereas, other Barca players like Jeremy Mathieu, Arda Turan and Andre Gomes could be soon allowed to leave the club to make the way for the newcomers.

OneIndia News