Despite the team performing well this season, there is a high priority to maintain the excellence for next season. Pep Guardiola and Txiki Begiristain are working in parallel on planning the squad for next season on the assumption that it only requires three more additions that must be signed according to Catalan newspaper Sport.

In this sense, much of the planning will depend on the recruitment of Cesc Fabregas and the money they need to pay Arsenal in order to bring home the ‘gunner’. In fact, the first-team coach and Blaugrana technical secretary are working as if there are elections already, so to speak. Pep has already confirmed that he will continue next season regardless of who the next president might be and maintains its full confidence in his team.

Within the four months after the conclusion of the current season, Barca need to strengthen three positions:

- a right back,  to cover for Daniel Alves so he can get some rest
- the left winger, due to a possible departure of Thierry Henry and to strengthen the attack
- and a midfielder,  to cover for Xavi and Iniesta

These three additions will complete the squad according to the plans. And after much discussion, it was decided that the main priority is Cesc Fabregas.

However, Arsenal will not easily budge even though the Barcelona player has already made a firm decision to return to his childhood club. Tired of losing titles, Cesc believes that he has matured enough as a player and having achieved more than his goal of learning English, feels it’s time to head back home to Barcelona.

Arsenal have just made a final effort by offering a multi-million dollar contract that would make him the highest paid player in club’s history in London (about 33 million euros for the next five seasons). However, it looks like it will not be sufficient to retain the Catalan player. Taking that into consideration, Barca are working with the certainty that it would take 40 to 50 million euros to sign Cesc.

That’s about half the money budgeted for next year’s reinforcements, which means that the identity of the other two players would depend on the Catalan midfielder’s recruitment. To date, no direct names have been linked to the right-back position, but two have been mentioned as possible heirs to the left-wing: Frank Ribery and David Silva.

The Valencia winger would in principle be a cheaper option than the Frenchman. Bayern did not want to lose one of its jewels and the numbers that have been quoted from Bavarian lands (between 70 and 75 million euros) are in the prohibitive zone for the Blaugrana transfer policy. Therefore, all eyes will be focused on the possible arrival of Cesc and the extremely difficult signings of Ribery or other alternatives (especially David Silva).

In addition, Pep remains confident in the cantera and his planning for the upcoming campaigns is uniquely designed to slot-in the La Masia products. The players that are part of the future plays are:

- defenders: Bartra, Montoya, Muniesa and Fontas
- midfielders: Jonathan, Thiago and Sergi Roberto
- forwards: Gai Assulin, along with the already established Pedro, Bojan, Jeffren

However, the ideal plan and priority for next season is to sign 3 new players to fill-in the key roles.