Darts pundit Wayne Mardle has now claimed he believes one of the Premier League players is actually struggling right now.
He said during his coverage for Sky Sports that he believes one of the players who is pushing for a play-off spot is not playing nearly as good as he can at the moment.
Night 13 is underway right now in Liverpool, with five of the players left in the competition having a realistic chance of qualifying for finals night.
One of those is Michael van Gerwen, who looked as if he was going to run away with the competition in the early stages after winning three nights very early on.
However, he has only added one night win since then, and actually very rarely got past the first round.
This has allowed the likes of Michael Smith and Nathan Aspinall to catch up to him, with the latter overtaking him with his victory in Rotterdam.
While qualifying is still very much in his own hands, Mardle thinks Van Gerwen has been far from his best in recent weeks.
Wayne Mardle thinks Michael van Gerwen is struggling
He said: “Michael van Gerwen is not playing that great, even though he’s won four of those weeks. But we know everyone’s in and out of form, and this is a long event. No one has ever played great in every single game.
“But this is a difficult situation now for Michael, because he’s used to achieving, he’s used to doing it, he’s gonna have to fight for his play-off place. This might be the second time, but I personally think that he qualifies. But there’s still more work to do.”
Van Gerwen’s night gets underway with the challenge of Peter Wright, who has just two sole match victories under his belt all season, giving him a great chance at progressing to the latter stages of the week again.
However, it is fair to say his form has been far from the levels where he was described as ‘exceptional’ by former pundit Rod Harrington