5 players who silenced critics this season

#4 Paulinho (Barcelona)

Paulinho has been an effective signing for Barcelona this season

To be very honest, I was one of many who criticised Barcelona for spending £36.4m on Paulinho. The Brazilian midfielder was a Tottenham Hotspur outcast and thought to be nowhere close to the calibre of a club such as Barcelona.

Barely a few fans attended his unveiling and only one fan had a Paulinho shirt - given to him by the club (if social media is to be believed). Nobody spent good money to get his name printed on the Blaugrana shirt.

It was an uninspiring signing in the wake of Neymar's sale (Ousmane Dembele was still just a target). For a player who used to get dispossessed a lot even in China to sign for a club that prized keeping the ball was a definite head-scratcher.

But Ernesto Valverde had plans for him and they worked. Switching Barcelona to a 4-4-2, Paulinho was deployed as the box-to-box midfielder, charged with making runs to keep defences busy. It eventually allowed him to score goals too - either by Barcelona's design or pouncing on rebounds.

7 - Paulinho has scored more goals than any other midfielder in La Liga this season. Predatory.

— OptaJose (@OptaJose) January 7, 2018

Barcelona have also been defensively solid thanks to the double pivot of Paulinho and Sergio Busquets earlier in the season. Their ability to break up play and Paulinho's runs to initiate counter-attacks saw them thrive together.

Lionel Messi (25) and Luis Suarez (21) obviously lead the goalscoring charts for the club in La Liga. In third place? Paulinho with 8 goals. Nobody else has more than 3.