Barney - League is wide open

Raymond van Barneveld believes this year's Premier League season is going to be the toughest yet.

The world number two has taken part in every Premier League since he moved to the PDC in 2006 and this year and this year he will be competing with Phil Taylor, James Wade, Mervyn King Ronnie Baxter and Terry Jenkins - plus wildcard entries Simon Whitlock and Adrian Lewis.

And speaking from London's O2 Arena ahead of Thursday's curtain-raiser to the 14-week Premier League roadshow, the Dutchman said the format of the tournament makes it more exciting than some of the traditional darts events.

"This is going to be tougher than ever," he told skysports.com

"I think this has become the best of the best. The best players in the world get to play each other every single week and it's playing finals virtually every night.

"I like it because you can draw against each other as well. You can win, you can lose, but you can make a draw as well so it makes it more exciting than just a knock-out competition."

Goal

Van Barneveld has never made it past the semi-final stage of the Premier League and says reaching the final at Wembley is his first goal for this year.

And he said he expects Premier League debutant Simon Whitlock to compete for a play-off place along with the likes of Taylor and Wade.

"Everyone is capable of winning," he continued.

"Last year Mervyn King did really well in his first year; he was in the final and beat Phil Taylor in the semis.

"So I hope I'll be there in the top four - and the other three with me might be Simon, James and Phil.

"Of course I'm looking to win, but I've never ever made it to the final so that's the first target, to make it to the final.

"And then once you make it to the final you want to win it of course."

Record

More than 10,000 people are expected to pack in to the O2 Arena on Thursday night, a Premier League Darts record, and the tournament is being billed as the UK's largest indoor sporting event.

And while Van Barneveld is looking forward to playing in front of darts' biggest ever crowd, he says that more people don't necessarily create a more intimidating atmosphere.

"I can't wait," he continued.

"I've been to the O2 Arena to do some interviews and it's a great venue of course and a great kick-off to be here in front of 10,000 people.

"I remember I was playing back over in Lakeside for 1,000 spectators in the final and now this is 10 times as big. It's unbelievable.

"But I played for 8,000 or 9,000 people in Liverpool last year and sometimes a crowd of 2,000 can make more noise than 8,000.

"We played for Liverpool last year and a few weeks later we played for 3,000 or 4,000 and there was a lot more noise than at Liverpool."