Darts Premier League – ‘Dutch Derby’ the main attraction in Belfast

The Premier League Darts bandwagon rolls into Northern Ireland this weekend and there are a number of matches which look set to entertain the lively Belfast crowd.

Our darts tipster is here to give you his best bests for this week’s matches.

Mensur Suljovic v Gary Anderson

Suljovic’s loss to Daryl Gurney last time out was his second consecutive defeat, which leaves him in eight position in the table with four points. He is 4/1 with Grosvenorsport.com to gain a much needed win here.

Anderson, in contrast put a frustrating run to bed to defeat Simon Whitlock 7-4 in front of his native Scottish fans last week.

He has fallen down the rankings on the back of three successive draws, but he put those behind him to climb to fifth in the league.

The Flying Scotsman is the 13/25 favourite to make it back-to-back wins.

Anderson is a strong favourite for this one and rightly so given the Serbian’s slight downturn in form. Whilst his form is a worry, Anderson’s certainly isn’t and he appears to be warming to the competition at the right time and he should take this one in comfortable fashion.

Suljovic leads their head-to-head 4-3, but Anderson leads this year’s stats on both number of 180s thrown and highest checkout.

He is 6/5 to win and have the highest checkout, which looks a pretty generous price.

Raymond van Barneveld v Michael van Gerwen

There is no getting around it, this could be a cracker.

Barney and MVG battle it out in what is being billed as the ‘Dutch Derby’ and both are in good positions to qualify for the semi-finals.

MVG won the top-of-the-table clash against Michael Smith and the Green Machine looked in ominous form as he saw off the Englishmen 7-2.

The world number one is the strong 33/100 favourite to beat his fellow countrymen here.

Barney was in similarly good form as he easily dispatched an out-of-sorts Peter Wright 7-1 last week.

He has taken five points from his last three games and sits in fourth position in the Premier League table.

The five-time World Champion is 6/1 to upset the odds here.

Van Gerwen leads the head-to-head between these two 33-18 and I expect him extend that sequence here.

However, if you look back at recent meetings between the two they tend to be tight, competitive games that go near the distance.

Everyone expects MVG to win comfortably, but although he’s been getting the job done in terms of winning these past few weeks, there has been the odd chink in the armour and Barney could expose those and force the match long.

As such, there looks to be plenty of value in the 23/20 that is on offer on giving Barney at 2.5 leg head-start.

 

Daryl Gurney v Rob Cross

It took plenty of tries but Gurney has got his first Premier League victory. He beat Suljovic 7-3 last week and is still in touch with the top-four.

The seventh placed Northern Irishman is 15/4 to make it back-to-back victories in the Premier League.

After an inauspicious start to his Premier League career, ‘Voltage’ has surged into life and he sits second in the table.

He averaged an impressive 103.54 in his 7-1 thumping of Gerwyn Price last week and he starts this one as the 8/15 favourite.

Cross is the form man in the Premier League at the moment having won his last five and should take all the beating again here.

I’m going to take a chance on the current world champ winning the match whilst throwing the most 180s at 15/8.

He has thrown six fewer so far in the competition, but he is in red-hot form at the moment and I’m backing him to claim a much-needed win.

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