Barcelona must now direct their main goal towards winning the UEFA Europa league. The chances of them participating in the championship race in La Liga are very low. It looks like that race will be between Real Madrid and Sevilla. However, if Barcelona can eliminate Napoli in the UEFA Europa League, they can go all the way to the final. If they become champions, they can recover their prestige, which has fallen this year, a little. Transfers, on the other hand, I think were very appropriate
They won't sacrifice La Liga to focus on Europa League. If they win Europa League, they will be eligible for Champions League next season. If they fail, they will be out of Champions League and will lose a good income for the next season. It will affect their finance first, then are harmful for their attraction on star or promising players. They would like to join a big club which has good condition in competition and in finance. A position in top 4 of La Liga and a ticket to Champions League are more important for Barcelona rather than the Europa League title.
Barcelona and Atletico are only 1 point apart, whoever wins in that match will put them in the top 4 positions, Athletico and Barcelona this season do have quite strong pressure from many parties regarding their performances which are far from great, and the match will be able to be one way to silence the critics and prove that they are still the two big teams to be respected in La Liga.
It is a bad season for Atletico Madrid. They began it as a champions and now are in the fourth position and don't have big difference in total points than Barcelona. We know Barcelona have serious troubles since beginning of this season which lasted so far even with a new coach, Xavi. However, their performance is not considerably worse than Atletico Madrid with 1 point less.
If people want to find a club with bad issues, it's Athletico Madrid, not Barcelona. Barcelona are re-building their team and their results are acceptable. Athletico Madrid have bad and unacceptable results because they are champions of La Liga.