LITTLER HIT BY BOOS IN BELFAST
26/02/2026 By Aaron Nijjar
By Phil Lanning
LUKE LITTLER suffered more Premier League pain with whistling woes during a brutal Belfast battering.
The World No1 has now won just one game in four weeks of the campaign after taking another blow from Jonny Clayton in Northern Ireland.
Littler, 19, was thrashed 6-1 by Clayton seven days previously in Glasgow and the Welsh star repeated the trick last night in the quarter-finals with a 6-3 success.
The World Champion missed opportunities in the contest against The Ferret to lurch to the brink of defeat.
And, just when the axe was about to fall, the crowd showed no mercy to Littler with his throw affected near the end of the match.
At 5-2 down, the World No.1 was in mid-sequence when a loud whistle forced him to stop.
Littler stepped off his effort, smiled and waved a hand in the air almost encouraging more grief before pinning a 112 finish in his next visit and giving a calm down gesture to the crowd.
However, that act of defiance merely acted to stave off the inevitable as Clayton won the ninth leg to progress and send the teenager home.
Sky’s Dan Dawson said: “The crowd are getting to him. He is going to laugh it off. It is probably the best way to deal with it. This is what pressure does to people. Luke Littler 5-2 up probably ignores that.
“It’s not quite clicked for him in the Premier League yet.
“Clayton has been better than Littler and it is mainly down to the doubles.
“Littler was let down by his doubling and Jonny mercilessly punished that, beating Luke for the second straight week.”
Littler has endured a tough start to his Premier League campaign and has yet to reach a Final in any of the four nights so far in the competition.
He remains in the bottom half of the table with just four points and two of them were gifted due to the fact Michael van Gerwen missed last week’s event in Glasgow with illness and handed the 2024 winner a bye into the semi finals.
Littler played superbly at the weekend to smash his way to the Poland Darts Open but his Premier League woes continued.
Image by Taylor Lanning
