Will Littler rack up record-breaking scores against Price?
Ever since Luke Littler first made a name for himself in 2023 and reached the World Championship final as a debutant, he has taken fans’ hearts by storm. “The Nuke” has already taken the sport of darts to a new level as a teenager, winning title after title and ultimately entering the record books as the youngest “back-to-back” world champion of all time.
As is well known, success breeds envy, so the now 19-year-old prodigy has recently faced increasing hostility from paying audiences and has been regularly booed at major tournaments, including in England. In the Premier League, this newfound animosity toward the world’s best darts player has even had an impact of late.
Littler has been eliminated in the first round twice in a row. On Thursday, another early defeat looms, as Gerwyn Price, a player in top form, awaits him right at the start of the evening in Rotterdam, Netherlands. In my Littler vs. Price prediction, I’ll refrain from picking a winner for this match, but instead predict a high-scoring duel with plenty of 180s.
The reasons for this are obvious, or at least easy to identify when looking at the statistics. Littler leads the tournament in 180s. He has landed all three darts in the triple 20 field 69 times. “The Iceman” follows in third place with 53 maximums.
Furthermore, since I’m predicting ahead of the Premier League match between Littler and Price that the game will go to ten or even eleven legs and therefore won’t be one-sided, this increases the chance of at least seven 180s in the first match of the evening.
The fact is that both players want to bounce back from last week. Littler lost 4-6 to Bunting in Brighton, while Price lost 3-6 to Josh Rock. The Welshman, however, celebrated a tournament victory in Manchester two weeks ago. With 19 points, the former professional rugby player ranks third in the Premier League standings, two points behind Luke Littler.
Given that Price is likely to struggle to keep up with the world champion’s high-scoring pace in every leg, he will probably need a few high checkouts to stay in the match.
Luke Littler – Gerwyn Price Head-to-Head Record
The rivals have already faced off four times this Premier League season. All four encounters went to the 19-year-old Englishman, though he dropped four or more legs in three of those four matches.
The match went to the decisive eleventh leg twice! Also worth noting: A total of 31 180s were recorded. That’s an average of nearly eight maximums per match. In the quarterfinal on the sixth night in Nottingham, the announcer even had to raise his voice 14 times to call out “ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY.”
Luke Littler – Gerwyn Price Prediction
The Premier League is the most elite tournament on the darts calendar. Over several months, eight selected players compete for tournament victories every Thursday evening. Every win counts, every leg is important—every evening starts from scratch. Behind Jonny Clayton, who has already won three Premier League evenings, Luke Littler ranks second; Gerwyn Price third. These two players now face off in Rotterdam in the quarterfinals. The advantage lies with the Englishman, who has won all four head-to-head matches against his Welsh opponent in the current PL season—though mostly by narrow margins.
Although “The Nuke” has failed to clear the opening hurdle twice in a row, I see a good chance that the two-time world champion will prevail on the 11th night and reach the semifinals, where a potential showdown against his new arch-rival Gian van Veen would await. In any case, I’m convinced that neither player needs much time to warm up and that they’ll deliver a high-scoring match right away. My Littler vs. Price tip is therefore aiming for at least seven 180s in the match! The 1.80 odds from Bet-at-home are worth a stake of five units to me.
