Peter Wright meets Jonny Clayton at the Brighton Centre on Thursday from 7pm - live on Sky Sports Action; the night's other quarter-finals will see Michael van Gerwen take on James Wade, Gary Anderson face Michael Smith and Joe Cullen play Gerwyn Price
Thursday 10 March 2022 16:14, UK
The Premier League roadshow heads to the Brighton Centre for Night Five of the league phase, as new world No 1 Peter Wright meets reigning champion Jonny Clayton.
Wright was knocked out at the last 16 stage at the UK Open at the weekend, but with Gerwyn Price defending £40,000 going into the tournament, the Welshman needed to at least reach the final to retain his No 1 ranking.
Price suffered defeat at the hands of Michael Smith in the quarter-finals, with Smith eventually losing in the final to Danny Noppert.
Now all eyes turn to the south coast and what should be another electrifying night of tungsten action with the £10,000 top prize and five league points on offer to the winner.
Wright, who currently leads the standings with 10 points, was a winner on Night One in Cardiff, but Night Two winner Clayton won't be offering up an easy passage to the semi-finals.
Speaking on this week's The Darts Show Podcast, former world No 1 Colin 'Jaws' Lloyd said Wright being announced as the newly-ranked No 1 won't matter a jot to Clayton.
"Clayton is going to go up there and do a job on Peter Wright," he said. "But psychologically, I'm wondering how that is going to affect Peter going up there? I don't think it will bother him too much because he's done the job in hand.
"That's going to be a funny game because I'm looking forward to that one. It's going to be my game of the night."
Laura Turner feels Price will be hungry to regain top spot back from the Scot, saying: "There's just over £20,000 between them which although on the surface sounds a lot, with these tournaments coming up I can see it going backwards and forwards quite a lot this year.
"This battle for world No 1 spot is going to be an interesting one as the year goes on."
Smith, who has moved up to a career-high fourth, will be hoping to get over his weekend disappointment against Gary Anderson.
Five-time winner, MVG, who has dropped down to fifth - his lowest ranking in almost ten years - goes up against James Wade.
"Michael is throwing some good stuff but there's that odd little game here and there and he's getting punished for it so he's going out of tournaments early," said Lloyd. "But I don't think Michael's worried about the No 1 position anymore. I don't think he's been worried about it for a good while.
"I just think Michael just turns up now and he wants to win everything that he enters. But you can never write off MVG. Last week in the Premier League, he played fantastic.
"He knows he's a class player and I know he gets frustrated. He just needs to knuckle down that little bit more."
Joe Cullen plays Belfast winner Price in the last of the quarter-finals.
Check out daily Darts news on skysports.com/darts, our app for mobile devices and our Twitter account @skysportsdarts. We're back for more Premier League action from The Brighton Centre on Thursday, March 10 from 7pm on Sky Sports Action.
