“Twenty to twenty -five percent chance that I will continue. You have to be that real. Point.” In the run-up to the last regular dart evening of the Premier League, the normally self-assured Michael van Gerwen does not wind it up. “I also know that it will be very difficult.”
De Vlijmenaar seems to be missing the play-offs, the final tournament of the Premier League, for the second time in his career. Van Gerwen faces a difficult job on Thursday evening. The seven -time record winner has to win the last game evening in Sheffield, to join the last four in the nick of time.
The results of the 36-year-old ‘Mighty Mike’ offer little hope this season. Van Gerwen won none of the fifteen game evenings.
Double feeling
“I have a double feeling here. I have left too many points and too often not played well enough. Then you will end up in this kind of position,” De Vlijmenaar tells the NOS.
“It is a sport of microde retails. Everything has to be right. At the moment the puzzle pieces are just not being put together. Why did PSV have two bad months? If it all had been so easy to explain, it would not have happened,” Van Gerwen makes a reference to his favorite club.
Van Gerwen has been struggling with his shape for some time. “During the Premier League it is very difficult to change things. You never have a moment of rest to try things, because the tournaments and playing evenings follow each other so quickly.”
Where previously the cheer cries followed each other in rapid pace during competitions, he looks extended this year.
“It is mentally heavy. It is a very thin line between very good and not good. I often have in competitions that I am throwing fantastic eleven -darters and a leg afterwards are throwing pudding teases. Then you make it difficult for yourself. But I have stood for hotter fires. You have to administer yourself and put your shoulders under it.”
“Heyday is over.”
The former top darter Colin Lloyd expressed criticism of Van Gerwen in a podcast this week. “I think his heyday is over. I wonder if he is really motivated.”
Van Gerwen has taken the criticism to heart, but says: “I find that a bit easy. People who have not been the strongest mentally will say things like this. But they have asked him for his honest opinion and you have to accept that.”
For a moment ‘Mighty Mike’ falls a silence. “But I just don’t take Colin’s opinion seriously,” says Van Gerwen with a broad smile.
The drug
“I am still hungry and I also really like darts. I just have to win competitions again, that’s the only medicine to get that good feeling again.”
Van Gerwen knows what to do in Sheffield. “I just have to win three games. Ready, it’s that simple. And otherwise you just don’t hear at home. I am realistic in that. Then I have to go back to the training board with the tail between the legs.”
