Who Should Replace Puyol, Xavi and Villa at Barcelona?

Under Pep Guardiola, Barcelona has gone from strength to strength and this year's FIFA Ballon D'or finalists is in itself a testimonial of Barcelona's achievements in 2010. 

Having said that, it is still important to adjust the team every season as we have seen under Pep—Alves, Villa, Ibra, Mascherano and Keita being some of his major signings.

However, Barcelona should not spend just for the sake of spending. Mascherano, for me, was a major blunder. He has been one of the most aggressive players in the Premier League and for a league that caters for a different style of football, a rough tackling and strong challenging Mascherano was somewhat of a risky buy. 

In my opinion, long-term replacements for Puyol, Xavi and Villa would be the key to Barca's success in the future. Puyol and Xavi would be in business for two seasons at the most and it is essential for Barcelona to start looking for replacements for the duo as soon as they hang their boots. 

The La Masia academy has enough potential replacements for Puyol (Fontas, Muniesa, Batra) and to a lesser extent Xavi (Dos Santos and Thiago).

The situation is a bit more complex when it comes to strikers, where Bojan seems to be the only one who could be capable of replacing Villa. Cesc seems to be the priority, quite understandably. He is without a doubt the ideal heir to Xavi's current role in the team. 

A player like Sakho would be an ideal contender to take Puyol's place in a couple of years. 

Sakho has all the abilities and talent to succeed Puyol: physical strength, great leadership abilities and positioning, pace, technique and versatility. He still lacks experience internationally, but the fact that he was named the captain of PSG at the age of 17 says a lot about his abilities.

Recently, there have been rumours of FC Barcelona's interest, so he could definitely to be a realistic purchase, especially when his contract is due to expire in 2012.