There are three weeks of the regular season left in the Premier League darts event which makes Thursday night in Birmingham another key week in the tournament. For the last time this year we have five matches on the night and by the end of it we will have a clearer picture of who will qualify for the playoffs at the o2.
Peter Wright vs Phil Taylor
The evening begins with the colourful Peter Wright in action. This is a big night for the Scot as he plays twice and having fallen four points off the playoff spots he really needs to maximise his points tally from the night.
Phil Taylor leads van Gerwen by two points at the top of the table and will be out to keep winning so that he can land the £25,000 bounty for finishing top of the league so The Power will be eager to win this match.
The form of these two are chalk and cheese in terms of results. Wright has one win in his last nine matches while Taylor has only failed to win three matches in 13 in this campaign. One of those matches was the reverse fixture with Wright where they drew 6-6. In fact Taylor has never beaten Wright in the Premier League which is quite amazing.
I think Taylor is getting Wright at a good time here though and although by throwing second he will need to break Wright twice to cover a 2.5 leg handicap the odds against price has tempted me in. Wright is changing darts week by week and has started to find the going too tough. Taylor was dreadful last week but won. I expect him to have worked on that and be back to his best here. If he is he can win this 7-4 or easier.
Raymond Barneveld vs Gary Anderson
Back to back wins for Raymond Barneveld have begun to invoke dreams that he can emulate last year where he came from the clouds to finish in the playoffs. He faces one of the two men he can realistically catch here so this is a big match.
Anderson won’t be looking down, he’ll be looking up and looking to secure a playoff spot and with two matches on the night he has the chance to go a long way to achieving that here but he arrives in Birmingham without a win in four matches which could be significant.
Anderson is just finding ways not to win at the minute whereas Barneveld is never completely convincing. When he plays well he can beat anyone as we’ve seen this season but you need to be psychic to predict when that is going to happen. I’m not psychic so I’ll sit this one out.
Adrian Lewis vs Robert Thornton
If Adrian Lewis is to make it to the o2 this match is simply must win for him. Robert Thornton knows that he can’t qualify for the playoffs now so he is just looking to play the role of spoiler from here on in and there are a couple of parties he could yet spoil.
Lewis’ record in this tournament isn’t what it should be. He was going along well this season though until he suffered two defeats on the night last week so he’ll be desperate to bounce back to winning ways in this match.
There are a lot of short priced favourites on the card on Thursday and I’ve a feeling at least one will slip up. Given Lewis’ record in this tournament he’s probably the biggest candidate but Thornton isn’t in the sort of form he would need to be in for me to recommend a bet so I’ll give this one a miss.
James Wade vs Michael van Gerwen
James Wade has the chance to do something very rare in the Premier League – the double over Michael van Gerwen. He needs to as well because he is just about clinging onto the top four and time is running out to get among them.
Van Gerwen moved to within two points of Taylor at the top last week when he won both his matches and with the two meeting in the final week of the season if he keeps on winning he will head to Rotterdam with a chance of topping the table and scooping the £25k bonus.
It is hard to bet against MVG these days but it is just as hard to go against Wade because generally when he’s given no chance he produces his best form. It would be just like him to hang around and nick something from this one so I’ll leave this game alone too.
Peter Wright vs Gary Anderson
The last time in the season that two men will play twice on the night and as with the other three such matches of this kind I’m going to leave this one from a betting point of view.
It could be that with defeat to Taylor earlier in the night Wright would be playing purely for pride and in which case I would expect Anderson to power past him but as mentioned above Anderson isn’t in the best touch at the minute and who knows how he will be feeling if he fails to beat Barneveld.
As always there are too many questions and not enough answers in these final matches of the night so I’ll sit this one out and what is a really tricky card to bet on I’ll stick with just the one punt.
Tips
Back P.Taylor (-2.5 legs) to beat P.Wright for a 4/10 stake at 2.10 with Betfair
Back him here:
