The penultimate evening of action in the first block of fixtures in the Premier League takes place inside the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes on Thursday on a night which could see the leaders pull away from the stragglers.
We got back to seeing some excellent darts on Wednesday, crowned by the nine dart finish delivered by Jonny Clayton and you would imagine that the quality is only going to be maintained if not improved now.
Dimitri Van den Bergh vs Peter Wright
The opening match of the night sees two players who had emphatic enough wins on Wednesday battling it out when Dimitri Van den Bergh takes on Peter Wright in what looks like being an entertaining start to proceedings.
Van den Bergh sits joint top of the table so he can pull clear with a win here while Wright dropped a match to van Gerwen when he was unwell on Tuesday but looked much more on the ball in beating Gary Anderson on Wednesday. This has all the makings of a cracker with the added dynamic that Van den Bergh stayed with Wright during the World Championship so they will know each other well. Nothing stood out in the match anyway but that confirms it to be a no bet for me.
Jonny Clayton vs Rob Cross
The second match of the night sees the man who hit the nine dart finish on Wednesday evening back in action as Jonny Clayton takes on a Rob Cross who has offered up three very encouraging performances so far, albeit without the results he might necessarily have wanted.
Clayton goes into the evening with five points from his three matches and appears to have ironed out the issues that he had with his doubles in his win over Glen Durrant on Tuesday so he is entitled to be very tough to beat here. Cross hasn’t backed down in any of his matches though and he has three points to show for his efforts from a draw with de Sousa and a win over Wade before a defeat to a very good van Gerwen. I think Clayton will win this match but ultimately he’s a little on the short side yet unopposable for me.
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Jose de Sousa vs Nathan Aspinall
The third match of the evening sees two players who have made decent enough starts to their campaign going at it when the Grand Slam of Darts winner Jose de Sousa takes on the former UK Open champion Nathan Aspinall.
De Sousa continues to baffle with his counting and it has already cost him in this tournament. A couple of missed doubles that are always prevalent in his game have also cost him some points as well so if he is going to crack on and make the top four he really needs to tidy up his game. One player who doesn’t need to tidy too much up is Aspinall. He has won two of his three matches and was in position to win the other until Van den Bergh produced an insane four leg burst. Aspinall went into the tournament with questions over his form but it might just be that having Durrant in the first game was the confidence boost he needed. He looks the more polished of these two and if there is a winner here I fancy it will be him.
James Wade vs Michael van Gerwen
The penultimate match of the night should have seen the top two players in the world battling it out but after Gerwyn Price was forced out of the event we see the UK Open champion James Wade taking on Michael van Gerwen.
If there were questions over whether MVG still has it then a draw against Van den Bergh and then wins over Wright and Cross have answered that. Wade has been a weird case this week. His best match was his first one which you wouldn’t have expected because he only knew on the eve of the event that he was competing in it. Logic would have told us that he should have got better the longer the week goes on not worse. You’ve got to think van Gerwen will win this but the prices are completely reflective of that.
Gary Anderson vs Glen Durrant
The final match of the night is a battle of the former world champions as Gary Anderson takes on the struggling Glen Durrant in a match the Scot might need to revive his campaign after his lose to Wright on Wednesday evening.
Confidence was visibly low for Durrant going into the week and a 7-0 whitewash, only the 12th in the history of the tournament, but Van den Bergh will have done nothing to improve that. Anderson lost to Wright on Thursday but he wasn’t terrible in that defeat so it would be a big surprise if he doesn’t win this, and if he is crisp on the doubles he should win it big too but again that is all reflected in the prices so unless you want to risk another emphatic win for Anderson and take the chance he clicks his doubles, this is a no bet match.
Tips
PUSH – Back N.Aspinall to beat J.de Sousa (DNB) for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Betfair
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