Whoever takes over from Luis Enrique Martínez García at FC Barcelona in the summer had better make himself popular.

Transforming a team and winning trophies is not enough for the majority connected to the Catalan club.

Despite winning eight of the ten trophies that his side have competed for, and with all three available this season still to play for, the 46-year-old Asturian will not be greatly mourned, due in the main to his character.

Short with the media and unwilling to allow too much probing into performances that the media felt were below par have not allowed Luis Enrique to come anywhere near the near-Deity status that Pep Guardiola enjoyed whilst in the hot seat.

After deciding to make his decision to leave at the end of the current campaign public, the media may well have gone into overdrive with a lengthy list of possible candidates with each channel or publication wanting to be the one who named the most credible person for the job.

Instead, after an initial flurry of five or six names, pragmatism took over and that number was whittled down to just two people, Ernesto Valverde and Juan Carlos Unzué. The former twice having rejected the overtures from Camp Nou in the past, and could do so once again.

That is not necessarily what every Barça supporter wants to hear and nor is it what the Spanish media would have liked as it deprives them of the chance to dream up any one of the so-called big-name bosses across the world who could add some razzle dazzle to proceedings both on the pitch and in the press room.

After deciding that current Sevilla boss Jorge Sampaoli may be a little outlandish and have a character that is not suited to the club, he was omitted, while Tottenham Hotspur's Mauricio Pochettino has plenty to prove still before he can be considered a credible proposition for a behemoth like Barça.

Former Barça midfielder Eusebio Sacristán, was also mooted by the media and was a popular choice after his spell in charge of club's the B team, but he has rejected any notion of returning to the club after a bitter departure.

When asked if what he would say was 'no' if Barça came calling, he stated: “Yes, I can assure everyone of that. All that is happening now is thanks to a club, La Real, which after my four years with Barcelona's youth sector took an interest in me and took a chance on me Barça didn't consider me when I was part of the club. That is what I would have liked."

“It is down to just two that the decision makers are now thinking about," a journalist on national sports daily, El Mundo Deportivo, told me. “A third may enter the race, but Valverde and Unzué are the two that they like."

They being the president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, the technical director and former player, Robert Fernández, and sporting director, Albert Soler.

“Pochettino is a Madridista (a Real Madrid sympathiser), we don't want him," a Spanish TV commentator, with whom I work, advised me, due to his history as player and coach of Barcelona's cross-city rivals RC Espanyol.

Valverde, who both played for and coached RCD Espanyol, is not seen in the same light and his work with Athletic Club Bilbao is seen by the majority of supporters as the one to bring a seamless change to the club and to be able to renovate the squad.

The problem with the Valverde, however, is that he has a yearning to try his hand in the English Premier League and knows that his stock is currently high, but taking over an ageing Barça squad that could flop, as it did when Guardiola departed could harm his chances.

Unzué is currently in situ as Luis Enrique's number two and has worked with Frank Rijkaard and Guardiola, and has a couple of years as a Blaugrana player, but is not the preferred option. However, he could curry favour should the team win either the Spanish title or Champions League this term.

The only other name mentioned, and one that has been left without any true explanation for him not being considered, is current Everton boss Ronald Koeman.

'Tintin', as he was nicknamed during his playing days at Camp Nou, is still revered by Culés for his winning goal in the 1992 European Cup Final that saw the Catalan side win the trophy for the first time and would be a popular choice.

“He is not a contender at the moment, but both he and Phillip Cocu (the head coach at PSV and former Barça player) could come into the reckoning if Valverde does not want the job and Unzué is seen as more of the same," the El Mundo Deportivo reporter added.

Whoever does take the reins has many decisions to help make. New contracts for Lionel Messi and Andrés Iniesta are being discussed, a new right-back and centre-forward to consider signing, while sales will have to made with the likes of Aleix Vidal and Paco Alcácer considered surplus to requirements.

It promises to be an interesting summer at Camp Nou, but that is when the decisions will be made as the current hierarchy are not going to allow distractions from the job of winning trophies, which is currently in the hands of the outgoing Luis Enrique.