‘Barcelona and Real Madrid may be the best teams, but Premier League is still the best league in the world’, Ronald de Boer tells talkSPORT

1 Arsenal star Alexis Sanchez takes on Barcelona full-back Dani Alves at the Emirates

Former Barcelona midfielder Ronald de Boer claims the Premier League is still the best football league in the world, despite English clubs’ recent struggles in Europe.

Barca once again showed their class on Tuesday night as they left Arsenal’s hopes of reaching the quarter-finals in this season’s Champions League hanging by a thread with a 2-0 away win at the Emirates Stadium, with Lionel Messi scoring both goals.

Premier League sides used to have a consistent presence in the latter stages of Europe’s top competition, but they have struggled to compete in recent seasons, with Chelsea’s 2012 victory the last time an English club made it to the final.

The likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich have dominated Europe in their place, while the English top flight has faced criticism for teams’ lack of consistency and unpredictability of results.

But, according to De Boer, it’s that excitement and level of competitiveness which sets the Premier League apart from the Bundesliga, La Liga and Serie A.

“If you look at just at the teams, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich are probably the best in the world,” De Boer told the Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast.

“But the Premier League is the most attractive and exciting league in the world.

“The German league and the Spanish league, you can’t compare them with the English league. There is a tendency to just look at the teams and not the whole picture. But you have to ask the question; what is more important?

“I think a league which is so exciting, like the Premier League, is more important than just one team winning the league already in February. Like Bayern in Germany or PSG in France. That’s not really interesting.

“If you just look at these top teams, they have a group of players who can beat everybody and are very exciting to watch. But when I watch the Spanish league, for example, I only want to watch Barcelona and Real Madrid, and that’s it.

“In England there are eight or nine big teams but you always see a spectacle, no matter who they are playing. And that’s a huge difference.”