Glen Durrant will make his Premier League bow in Glasgow
Glen Durrant will make his Premier League bow in Glasgow

Premier League Darts: Night two predictions, betting tips, accas, order of play & TV times


Our guide for Thursday night's action in Premier League Darts includes match-by-match predictions, order of play, Sky Bet odds and a suggested acca.

The second week of the PDC's lucrative roadshow rolls into Glasgow on Valentines' Day as Michael van Gerwen, James Wade and Gerwyn Price look to maintain their embryonic 100% records.

Following on from Chris Dobey's eye-catching and atmospheric debut as the first of this season's 'Gary Anderson replacements' last Thursday, they'll be no shortage of anticipation for Glen Durrant's maiden Premier League bow at the SSE Hydro.

The three-time Lakeside king, who matched Eric Bristow's record of three successive BDO World Championship titles last month before earning his PDC Tour Card at qualifying school seven days later, continued to live up to the hype surrounding his switch by finishing runner-up in just his second Players Championship event on Sunday.

On Thursday night he faces Daryl Gurney in one of five matches and although he's obviously only playing for pride, the Northern Irishman needs the points after his defeat to Price last week.

Below I run through all the fixtures, complete with head-to-head records, match verdicts, bets and an acca.

Premier League Night Two: Thursday February 14

Click on the odds for more Sky Bet match markets

  • TV Coverage: Sky Sports (1900 GMT)
  • Format: Maximum of 12 legs

Accumulators

Treble: Smith, Cross and Gurney all to win at 9.5/1

Four Fold: Smith, Cross, Barney and Gurney all to win at 29/1

Draw no bet acca: Smith, Cross, Barney and Gurney all to win at 11/1

Peter Wright (7/4) v Michael Smith (11/10), draw (3/1)

Head-to-head: 15-8
Meetings since start of 2018: 3-3
PDC Titles in 2018: 2-3
Career Titles: 22-11

Peter Wright was involved in an entertaining 6-6 draw against Rob Cross in Newcastle in a match between two players desperate to have a far more impressive 2019 than last year.

Having also reached the season-opening Masters semi-final at the start of February and then looking sharp in one of the weekend's two Players Championship events, you'd have to say Snakebite is showing promising signs that he could be on an upwards curve.

Wright averaged 110 in a 6-5 victory over Smith, who incidentally posted a mark of 112, in Saturday's quarter-final while he also defeated him at the Masters, so this is an opportunity for a quickfire hat-trick.

The Scotsman crashed out in the second round to eventual runner-up Glen Durrant 24 hours later but Bully Boy fared even worse, losing 6-0 at the first hurdle to Keegan Brown.

The recent head-to-head and form lines therefore don't look favourable for the World Championship runner-up but I think it would be unwise to put too much importance on floor results when he's clearly established himself as one of the most dangerous players on the televised stage over the past 12 months.

In an interview with the Metro this week, Wright questioned whether Smith has major success in him and assuming the St Helens man has seen those quotes, it could add a little bit of needle to the occasion.

I actually expect Smith to win this one quite well and lay down a marker following last week's narrow defeat to Michael van Gerwen - so the 11/5 on him in the handicap market at -2.5 legs catches my eye.

Scoreline prediction: 4-7

Suggested bet: Smith (-2.5 legs) at 11/5

Rob Cross (11/10) v James Wade (7/4), draw (3/1)

Head-to-head: 5-5
Meetings since start of 2018: 1-4
PDC Titles in 2018: 2-2
Career Titles: 7-30

James Wade made a winning return to the Premier League last week - and in quite some style too as he came from 4-3 down to take seven legs on the spin against Raymond van Barneveld, finishing with an average of 99 and pinning seven of his 12 attempts at doubles.

And while the Machine insists he's still only 'moving in the right direction' despite winning two of the last five televised finals of the 2018 season (European and World Series) and reaching the Masters final a fortnight ago, many will feel he's more than a spot of value at 7/4 to maintain his 100% record.

He's also beaten Cross in four of their last five meetings but do bare in mind that only two of his five of his victories overall have been on the stage environment of the European Tour and neither televised. The 2018 world champion has bagged both TV meetings, with the most recent of those being the Shanghai Masters last summer.

Wade had a pretty solid weekend, with his best run being to the quarter-finals on Sunday where he lost to eventual winner Dave Chisnall, who also beat Voltage in the previous round.

Now that was the only match Cross averaged well below 100 of the six games he played in so I'd like to think his game isn't too far away from where he'd want it to be.

He also posted an impressive mark of 104 against Wright last Thursday and he'll need to score heavily again to defy the expert timing of Wade.

Scoreline prediction: 7-5

Suggested bet: Cross to win and hit most 180s at 9/4

Raymond van Barneveld (15/8) v Gerwyn Price (1/1), draw (3/1)

Head-to-head: 5-1
Meetings since start of 2018: 2-0
PDC Titles in 2018: 0-2
Career Titles: 41-4

There are few signs pointing to Raymond van Barneveld overturning a miserable run of form on Thursday night and he finds himself as the underdog against a player who has won just one of his 10 Premier League games.

I recently interviewed the Dutch legend and it's such a shame to see him lacking that fire in the belly needed to get the most out of talents in his farewell season.

If I was a sports psychologist I'd say he's dwelling far too much on his trophy drought and the reasons for his slide down the rankings rather than visualising how he used to feed off the crowd's energy to produce many famous performances.

He's got to go out all guns blazing after last week's defeat to James Wade but his form over the weekend won't have boosted his confidence having lost two of the three matches he played.

Price didn't fare much better as he crashed out in the second round of both days - albeit by 6-5 scorelines - although he'll be looking forward to getting back out on that Premier League stage having finally got his first ever win in the tournament by beating Daryl Gurney 7-4 with an average of 104.

None of the above will convince you to side with Barney but perhaps in these depths of despair we might just see him throw caution to the wind in this non ranking environment.

After all, he's beaten Price in five of their six meetings and he'll probably be viewing this as potentially the most winnable of his regular season games. A triumph in Glasgow, where he'll have huge support against the controversial Welshman, will give him the boost he desperately needs.

Scoreline prediction: 7-5

Suggested bet: Raymond van Barneveld to win the match, score over 2.5 180s and checkout over 76.5 at 7/2

Daryl Gurney (11/8) v Glen Durrant (11/8), draw (3/1)

Head-to-head: N/A
Meetings since start of 2018: N/A
PDC Titles in 2018: 1-0
Career PDC Titles: 3-0

It's no wonder Glen Durrant says he's on 'cloud nine' as he prepares for a Premier League debut that has come round far earlier than anyone could have imagined.

Of course it's only happened because of Gary Anderson's injury-enforced withdrawal and will only last one night but at the rate Duzza's going, he may well end up a permanent fixture in the line up next year!

The three-time BDO world champion, who began the year by lifting his third successive Lakeside crown, may well have just scraped through Q School a week later but it took him just two Pro Tour events to reach his first final.

I guess noone should really be surprised given his undoubted ability but I was particularly impressed at the way he picked himself up from a 6-5 first-round defeat against Alan Tabern on the Saturday to defeat the likes of Peter Wright, John Henderson and Joe Cullen 24 hours later before falling to Chisnall 8-7 in the final.

While the Scottish crowd won't get behind an Englishman as much as the Newcastle fans rallied behind Chris Dobey, it'll still be an experience he'll want to revel in and showcase his talents to the big TV audience - just like he's done at the Grand Slam of Darts in previous years.

Daryl Gurney is a bit out of form to be fair, only winning four matches across the weekend, but you can expect him to raise his game as he looks to bounce back from his defeat to Gerwyn Price last Thursday.

The 2017 World Grand Prix champion knows he's got one of the tougher 'Contenders' matches but at least that means he won't fall into the trap of complacency like Peter Wright could do against Steve Lennon in Dublin.

It really isn't long ago since Gurney's great triumph at the Players Championship Finals in Minehead, where he performed so brilliantly under pressure against MVG, so I really wouldn't be surprised to see him show us what he's made of again.

Scoreline prediction: 7-5

Suggested bet: Gurney to win and hit most 180s at 7/2

Mensur Suljovic (6/1) v Michael van Gerwen (1/3), draw (4/1)

Head-to-head: 4-10
Meetings since start of 2018: 0-2
PDC Titles in 2018: 2-19
PDC Titles in 2019: 0-2
Career Titles: 5-119

It was a commendable effort from Mensur Suljovic to come from 5-1 down against Chris Dobey in Newcastle given how much the crowd was in his opponent's favour but in the end he may just have been a tad disappointed not to have close out the victory.

The Austrian, who was somewhat unfortunate to be relegated on Judgement Night in his first Premier League season, won't want to become embroiled in another campaign at the wrong end of the table but pressure may start to mount if he's still on one point after two games.

Nobody wants to play Michael van Gerwen before they've accrued a nice amount of points and Suljovic has one of the poorer recent records against the world number one, losing 10 of their last 12 meetings since the start of 2015.

Their last meeting came in the Masters semi-final, with MVG comfortably winning 10-5 en route to landing the title for the fifth year in a row and after opening his Premier League campaign with victory over the man he defeated in the Ally Pally showpiece, he then picked up his third title in a row in Saturday's Players Championship.

His 22-match winning streak was eventually ended by Jonny Clayton on Sunday - despite averaging 104 - but it's hard to oppose him bounce straight back in Glasgow.

That said Suljovic will be rested after missing the weekend and if he can find some early rhythm, this could be a close match of high quality.

Scoreline prediction: 4-7

Suggested bet: Match to have over 10.5 legs, highest checkout to be over 104.5 and over 4.5 total 180s at 13/8

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