We move into the second half of the regular campaign in the Premier League Darts on Thursday night when the field of eight head to Berlin for another night of action where more league points and money is on the line.
Those who are not yet in the top four of the league are at the stage where it is becoming important that they pick up points. Those who are in the top four will be looking to cement their position with more points here.
Dimitri Van den Bergh vs Michael Smith
The opening quarter final of the night could be the most important one of the evening when Dimitri Van den Bergh takes on the world champion Michael Smith in a clash between sixth and fourth heading into the evening.
Were Van den Bergh to lose this one he would drop at least four points off of the top four and although there are seven nights left he would be looking at needing to win one to restore parity with those above him. Smith can put a bit of distance between himself and certainly the bottom three with a win here so you would imagine he will be bang up for putting in a better performance than he has done in the last two weeks where he has been beaten by Chris Dobey on both occasions. My gut feeling is Van den Bergh might sneak this but Smith isn’t the world champion for nothing and I don’t really want to take him on.
Nathan Aspinall vs Chris Dobey
The second quarter final of the evening sees two players who might be considered to be punching above their weight in the league table from a ranking point of view when Nathan Aspinall takes on Chris Dobey.
Aspinall has entered a bit of an up and down part of his season whereas Dobey has suddenly found some form again with a pair of wins over the world champion Michael Smith in the past two weeks. Dobey has been beaten in the last two Premier League nights by Gerwyn Price who is on more than a rich vein of form right now and is beating anyone that comes into his way. Aspinall has performed well but I’m still not convinced by him when it comes to hitting the outer ring and if that weakness comes back to haunt them then he could be in a bit of trouble here. We should acknowledge that Dobey lost in the European Tour on Saturday with an 80 average but three matches in barely 48 hours and hefty travelling probably caught up with him. I’m prepared to let him have that and with a bit of rest expect him to be much better here and at odds against he looks the bet to me.
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Jonny Clayton vs Michael van Gerwen
The bottom half of the draw is loaded this week and the runaway table topper Michael van Gerwen is up in the third of the quarter finals when he takes on a Jonny Clayton who really needs to find a win to revive his campaign.
Clayton hasn’t picked up many results in the Premier League, winning matches on just three of the eight nights. The bigger concern for him might well be that there haven’t been many occasions where he has been unlucky not to win. That isn’t the case for Van Gerwen. He has won 15 matches across the tournament in total and three of those wins have been in nightly finals so he is going very nicely at the minute. These two have already met three times in the Premier League this season and they have all been pretty comfortable affairs. With Clayton winning just two of his last eight matches and MVG looking good in both the European Tour event at the weekend and the Premier League last week until he ran into Gerwyn Price it is hard to see anything but an MVG win, but that is reflected in the odds.
Peter Wright vs Gerwyn Price
Two former world champions meet in the last of the quarter finals on the night when Peter Wright goes in search of a desperate run of wins when he takes on a Gerwyn Price who is playing lights out darts wherever he plays at the minute.
Price stormed to victory in the Premier League last week and then performed even better in the European Tour event over the weekend with averages exceeding 108 regularly across the four days and if he has maintained that form here then he is going to take some stopping by everyone let alone Wright. The German crowd is likely to give Price a fairer crack at the whip too which isn’t going to help Wright much. We all know the off-board family issues Wright is navigating and it is clearly affecting his stage form. He has only won one out of nine matches in the Premier League and last weekend he was 5-1 up on Ricardo Pietreczko in his European Tour opener but proceeded to lose 6-5. Wright looks low on confidence and might have forgotten how to get over line which is a place no player wants to be. Wright’s one Premier League win did come over Price which will give him something to cling to but everything we’ve seen since then suggests that Price will win this and win it well but once again the odds reflect that.
Tips
Back C.Dobey to beat N.Aspinall for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with BetVictor
Back him here:
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