Imperious Anderson Marches On

Gary Anderson and Terry Jenkins face off in the second week of the Premier League this Thursday after both winning their opening week’s fixtures.

Anderson was in fine fettle as he muscled out Simon Whitlock with some big finishes and even bigger scores last Thursday. It was a glowing reminder of how far the Scot has come in recent months as he coped with the large and raucous crowds amicably.

In the past there have been questions raised surrounding Anderson’s ability to hold things together under pressure, but his recent run to the PDC World Championship final appears to have quashed those fears and given Anderson a new lease of life.

"I was nervous at the start and settled down after the first leg. It's good to get the first match out of the way and I feel I've got a lot of improvement in me yet," said Anderson following his victory over Whitlock last week.

Jenkins, meanwhile, came back from the brink of defeat to take maximum points from his opener against Raymond van Barneveld. In a nip-and-tuck match Barney edged into a 6-4 lead before Jenkins showed all his renowned battling qualities to win the match 8-6.

The bookmakers have Anderson as the clear 4/9 betting favourite but he will be well aware of how dangerous an opponent Jenkins is and few would discount him at odds of 3/1.

While Anderson and Jenkins battle for the top spot in the league Whitlock and van Barneveld will go head to head in an attempt to lift themselves from the bottom of the table.

Whitlock was undone last week by the sort of things – big scoring and big finishing – that he was doing to others for fun 12 months ago. If he is to reassert himself as a force in the game he’ll need to rediscover those attributes that got him to where he is today.

Barney’s fragile mind-set was once again exposed when he failed to close out the win against Jenkins last week and it’s difficult to see where he goes from here if he loses again this Thursday.