I agree with you. If you look at the statistics in the previous few seasons, Barcelona was able to stay in the top 3 for several seasons and that shows that they are still the same Barcelona and are one of the big teams in La Liga. But what differentiates them from previous seasons is that they slumped to 4th and 5th place this season. I think that's something that rarely happens to Barcelona. And coupled with the financial crisis experienced by the team, some people think that Barcelona is in trouble. But if you look at their current position I am sure they will get second place in La Liga. And with great young players in their team, I think Barcelona will return to being one of Europe's strongest teams next season.
The era of considering Barcelona as a really big team enough to even be seen as a threat to most teams in the la Liga I think is gone already because Barcelona in recent times has just be characterized with too many inconsistencies which in turn isn't helping their position and even their results on the table too, it's usually considered that Barcelona and Real Madrid are the two big teams that get to trouble others in the la Liga but not again.
Real Madrid has continually try to maintain their form and strength enough in the la Liga but with Barcelona it's been so much of a very different case and I don't seem to want to think they would want to continue that way but the teas performance has continued to remain that way and it's not been of Great help enough to them. It's still very much possible for Barcelona to finish at the second position and still look like the next to real Madrid as they should be but then they would have been much better if they were able to defend the trophy as against allowing real Madrid taking it away from them.
Barcelona still turning out to be one of the biggest team across Europe is still very much possible but that will entails a whole lot of improvement on their side so they would be able to build the kind of form and strength that will be needed to be at that position because they wouldn't achieve it by there current form and I think it's also high time Barcelona stop the blame on their financial Crisis and get to fix the team.