Premier League Darts 2024 Sheffield Odds: World champ to show his class

The Premier League regular season reaches its climax at the Utilita Arena in Sheffield on Thursday night (19:00). Luke Littler, Luke Humphries and Michael van Gerwen have sealed the first three qualification spots but which of Nathan Aspinall and Michael Smith will join them?

Our Darts expert Sean Rafferty previews this one and gives us his Premier League Darts Sheffield predictions, including a nightly winner pick and a tasty looking double. 

Draw

Luke Littler
Peter Wright

Nathan Aspinall
Michael Smith

Luke Humphries
Gerwyn Price

Michael van Gerwen
Rob Cross

2 pts Luke Humphries Night 16 winner @ 12/5

Luke Humphries appears to be entering some prime form again at just the right time, with Finals night round the corner next week. 'Cool Hand' stormed to victory last week in his 'homecoming' night in Leeds - smashing Michael Smith and Rob Cross 6-1 in his first two matches, before digging deep to beat Van Gerwen 6-5 with a ton average, he also averaged well over 100 for the night.

The World Champion then backed this up with a run to the final on the Euro Tour this past weekend. He’s averaged 101+ in five of his last eight matches, so looks to be finding top form again. He plays Price first up, who is likely still troubled with a back injury, then plays the winner of MVG/Cross so he’ll need to do it the tough way but I believe he can win consecutive weekly nights to go into Finals night on a high, at a backable price of 12/5.

Over 9.5 legs in Nathan Aspinall vs Michael Smith @ 5/6

By far the biggest match of the night, as this is essentially a straight shootout to see who completes the line up for next week’s Finals Night. Smith has been playing catch up with Aspinall for a number of weeks now, but has given himself a fighting chance, where one win would see him over the line.

With everything at stake, this is likely to be a nervy, cagey affair and I really struggled to separate these two, which brings me to backing over 9.5 legs (both players to win 4+ legs). They’ve played each other three times in this Premier League campaign - two of them have gone over 9.5 legs, with the other finishing 6-3 - Aspinall winning two of these.

Both men are playing a similar level of late and this will be played in great spirit ,as both are really good mates (they even went on holiday to Vegas together last month), know each others games inside out and I see this going right down to the wire.

Luke Humphries to beat Gerwyn Price @ 4/9

I spoke above about what I make of Humphries’ chances this week and I expect this one to be a pretty easy opener for him as Price arguably isn’t at 100% fitness, he also has nothing to play for having already been eliminated from the top four battle, so doesn’t need to push himself.

Since a Price victory in the Bahrain Darts Masters, Humphries has won all three of their meetings with relative ease, on top of boasting a strong 6-2 lead in their meetings from 2023 onwards. Price returned last week after a two week absence due to a back injury, however he fell to a 6-3 defeat at the hands of MVG and averaged below 90.

A similar performance here will likely see Cool Hand run out a very comfy winner, as a 100+ average looks more likely than not for him at the moment. 4/9 is a solid price for what I would say has a 9/10 chance of landing.

Double @ 13/8

Sean Rafferty covers Darts for us here at Betfred Insights. You can find all of Sean's latest Darts Betting Tips on our main Darts page.