Michael van Gerwen has started 2025 showing glimpses of his best, but Phil Taylor believes there has been ‘one change’ to his game that is stopping him from reaching his peak level.
Michael van Gerwen has been going through a bit barren spell in recent years.
This isn’t a knock on one of the greatest darts players of all time. He’s been to the World Championship final in two of the last three years, sits third in the PDC Order of Merit, and is still picking up titles with regularity on the Tour.
The barren spell is by his previous standards.
The Dutchman has now gone two years without a major ranking title win, despite making it to several of the finals.
This is a player who went to 11/12 major finals (ranked and non-ranked) in 2016, winning nine of them.
That’s obviously ‘peak’ MVG, but there is still always an expectation for him to win a major. Even with the emergence of the two Luke’s in recent years.
A run to the 2025 World Championship finals last month, and an electric performance against Luke Littler on the Premier League opening night last week has shown signs that the ability is still there.
It just doesn’t seem to be clicking for him at the right times though.
This is something Phil Taylor has picked up on and he believes there has been a change to MVG’s game that is holding him back, and it’s something he NEVER did in his prime during Taylor’s era…
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Phil Taylor Believes Michael van Gerwen is THINKING Too Much
Since retiring from darts in 2024, Phil Taylor has been exploring a new side to darts doing media work, mainly for MODUS Super Series events.
See related – Phil Taylor forced to retire earlier than planned due to injuries
His insight to darts will always be appreciated by darts fans and speaking to talkSPORT Darts, the 16 x World Champion believes that Michael van Gerwen is overthinking his checkouts, something he would never do during his prime.
He said:
“With Michael, he’s back practising, he’s dedicated. Like Chris Dobey his scoring is phenomenal, brilliant, but his doubles are a little bit sketchy.
“His finishing at the end when he’s under pressure, I think he’s thinking about it. When I was playing Michael, he used to just walk up and do it, he wasn’t thinking.
“I think the Luke’s [Humphries and Littler] now are making him think and that’s the only little 1% that’s spoiling his game.
“When Michael was playing my era, he was going up there and not thinking about it. Now, he’s thinking about it.
“When you have time to think, that’s when you don’t play as well.”
See the full interview below:
This was an interview labelled as “advice for Luke Littler” but his analysis of MVG was far more insightful.
Michael van Gerwen is back in action tonight for Night 2 of the 2025 Premier League Darts. He’s got a first round match against Stephen Bunting in Glasgow as he will look to make it to the final for consecutive weeks.
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