Michael van Gerwen says Peter Wright ought to retire from darts and was “not surprised” the two-time world champion was knocked out within the second spherical of the World Championship.
Wright was whitewashed 3-0 by Germany’s Arno Merk on Tuesday as an already troublesome 2025 ended with an early exit at Alexandra Palace.
Van Gerwen’s feedback come every week after Wright claimed the Dutchman’s “vision is probably going”.
“I’m not really surprised by his performance because he’s been playing c*** lately,” Van Gerwen stated after his 3-1 win over William O’Connor.
“I think it’s time for him to retire anyway.”
Since shedding his opening match on the World Championship on the finish of 2023, Wright has been on a largely downward spiral and dropped down the rankings, with the 55-year-old virtually actually set to fall outdoors the highest 32 following this yr’s match at Alexandra Palace.
He gained simply two matches in your entire 2024 Premier League Darts sequence and has did not transcend the quarter-finals in any televised rating tournaments within the final two years.
Gary Anderson, one other Scottish veteran and two-time world champion, says Wright must be given “a bit of time”.
“We can’t play well all the time. People think we’re robots and you’ve just got to play well all the time or a bad couple of games it’s ‘he’s finished, he’s retiring’,” he stated.
“Just give folk a break, you know. We can’t keep doing that day in and day out. We’ve seen Michael van Gerwen do that for probably the last decade. He has a blimp and it’s ‘that’s it, he’s finished’.”
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Arno Merk thrashed Peter Wright within the second spherical of the World Championship
Mardle: Wright shouldn’t make knee-jerk response resolution about future
Sky Sports activities Darts’ Wayne Mardle:
“It was an awful watch – watching a champion, a legend of our sport, someone who has helped the sport grow, I didn’t enjoy it one bit.
“I do not know what questions Peter will ask himself – whether or not it is like ‘it is advantageous, I’ll stick with it. I really like the sport’. And I hope that occurs.
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Check out among the Christmas outfits that Peter Wright has handled the Alexandra Palace crowd to through the years
“He’s always said ‘I don’t want to retire, I love it’ so I don’t want him to have a knee-jerk reaction because it’s happened at the World Championship.
“In case you play like that elsewhere, it is OK. You do not actually give it some thought however once you do it on the World Championship, and I do know this as a result of I’ve completed it, you find yourself questioning whether or not you might be adequate to compete ever once more.
“And it’s about competing, about winning. He’s a winner. I hope he’s OK because you will think about that. That sleepless night stuff, I hope he doesn’t make one of these knee-jerk reactions like we have seen from other players.
“He is been an aesthetic ambassador for darts – brings that enjoyable but in addition brings that incredible capability and a contact of sophistication.”
Who will win the Paddy Power World Darts Championship? Watch every match exclusively live until January 3 on Sky Sports’ dedicated darts channel (Sky channel 407). Stream darts and extra prime sport with NOW.
