Barcelona's manager, Pep Guardiola, refused to rule out making offers for Chelsea's Didier Drogba and the Arsenal striker Emmanuel Adebayor after last night's 6-0 rout of Hibernian.
Both players have been strongly linked with a summer move to Camp Nou and Adebayor has spoken publicly of his admiration for the Catalan club. "Barcelona are always interested in good players," Guardiola said when asked directly about the pair. "Those players are interesting but so are many others in England, Italy and Germany. You would be better to speak to the sporting director [Txiki Begiristain] about the exact situation."
With Samuel Eto'o surplus to requirements, Barcelona are keen to bring in a striker. Drogba's agent has suggested the player will wait until the end of this month to see which clubs are interested in him before making a decision on his future. Adebayor refused to guarantee he would remain at Arsenal next season when he met Arsène Wenger this week.
Guardiola denied that Barcelona had received a bid from Aston Villa for Eidur Gudjohnsen and admitted, "Who knows what will happen in the future?" when the subject of Eto'o's future was raised. There have been suggestions that the striker might yet swap places with Drogba at Stamford Bridge.
Last night Gudjohnsen, who scored two, and Lionel Messi put Barça three up against Hibs within 17 minutes and soon Pedro Rodríguez added a fourth. Second-half strikes from Bojan Krkic and Yaya Touré highlighted the almost embarrassing gulf in class in what was the Catalans' first pre-season match. "I am very satisfied with the attitude of my players," said Guardiola.