Thomas Muller doesn’t feel that Premier League teams are ‘super, super strong’ despite labelling them as the ‘biggest league’ in football.
Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool – find themselves in the quarter-finals of the Champions League this campaign and Guardiola’s side are considered among the favourites to win the European competition.
City got off to a winning start in their last-eight tie against Dortmund on Tuesday with goals from Kevin De Bruyne and Phil Foden sealing a 2-1 win in the first leg at the Etihad.
But, Liverpool slipped to a disappointing 3-1 defeat against Real Madrid in the first leg of their quarter-final, while Chelsea will face Porto on Wednesday night.
But ahead of Bayern’s clash against PSG on Wednesday, which is a repeat of last year’s final, Muller gave an assessment of the quality of teams in the Premier League and how they compare to other top divisions.
‘I do not feel that teams of the Premier League are super, super strong,’ Muller told The Independent. ‘But, of course, the competition is great. There are prestigious games each week.
‘I think it’s the biggest league in the world, for sure. But that doesn’t mean that the top five of the Premier League are winning everything in their international competitions, or when you compare the fourth of the Premier League and the fourth of the German league.
‘When they play a knockout game against each other, any team can win.’
On Man City’s chances of going all the way this season to win the competition, Muller added: ‘A team with Pep Guardiola is always in shape to win it.
‘But the problem is in the Champions League, in the knockout stage, you have only two games and many crazy things can happen. And last year in the tournament, there was only one game against Lyon. Maybe if there were two games they go to the next round, maybe.
‘That’s the problem when you have only one chance or only two games, there is more “random” than in 38 games like in the Premier League.
‘In the last two years, Liverpool was amazing. But normally a good team with Pep Guardiola wins the league, for sure. The continuation, how he prepares his teams. His team against smaller teams, he is the best. But when two top teams play against each other, the difference is not big enough to put away the “random”.’
