LITTLER BRANDED VULNERABLE IN PREMIER LEAGUE

LUKE LITTLER has been branded “vulnerable” in the Premier League format after his opening-night defeat.

World No.1 Littler suffered a 6-4 quarter-final loss to Gian van Veen in the first week of the major tournament at Newcastle.

Former pro Matt Edgar believes the short, race-to-six structure could expose a weakness in Littler’s game.

Edgar pointed to Littler’s struggles on the ProTour, where there is little time to recover from slow starts.

He told OLBG: “He’s vulnerable on the ProTour — it’s the same format, and Luke struggles there.

“We’ve seen at times at the World Matchplay him going 5-0 down.

“We’ve seen him go multiple sets down to Gerwyn Price and then pull it back. He doesn’t have time in the Premier League.

“Maybe this is where we are going to see Luke not be as dominant.”

Darts content creator Charlie Murphy believes there is no cause for panic just yet and backed Littler to respond when it really matters.

He added: “I don’t think it’s going to continue for Luke to lose round one games. I don’t think that will happen very often.

“Let’s say we get about halfway through and it starts to get to the point where he needs to win nights to get into the top four — I can definitely see that happening.

“I think he can switch it on when he really needs to and when he really wants to.

“It’s night one — did it really matter to him? Yeah, he probably wanted to win, but there is that subconsciousness as well where he knows it’s not that important.”

Littler returns to Premier League action next Thursday when he faces Luke Humphries in a blockbuster showdown in Antwerp.

Image by Taylor Lanning.