{"id":120188,"date":"2025-05-21T16:04:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T16:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/120188\/"},"modified":"2025-05-21T16:04:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T16:04:10","slug":"michael-van-gerwen-im-not-in-nathan-aspinall-pocket-for-sheffield-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/120188\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael van Gerwen \u2013 I\u2019m not in Nathan Aspinall pocket for Sheffield showdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Michael van Gerwen laughed off suggestions he is in Nathan Aspinall\u2019s pocket ahead of their Premier League showdown in Sheffield on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>If Aspinall beats the Dutchman in the Steel City then he will book his place in next week\u2019s play-offs at the O2 Arena.<\/p>\n<p>Van Gerwen can only reach the capital if he wins the event on Thursday \u2013 a big ask considering he is yet to win any of the previous 15 nightly events.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u2018The Asp\u2019 has a positive recent record against Van Gerwen, and said he has \u201cgot Michael in my pocket at the minute\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>But the Dutchman, who has a winning record over all of their match-ups, retorted: \u201cWhat\u2019s the overall record?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat is the record you are talking about?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have a little good patch, a little good run, then it\u2019s really easy to beat someone three times in a row in this format.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI mean, that\u2019s not the hardest thing in the world, but we\u2019re going to see tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a massive night for me. I can\u2019t fail again, simple as that, otherwise I\u2019m out of the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOf course, I\u2019m a winner. I\u2019m not a loser. When you\u2019re not performing to capability, then of course, you need to be hurt, otherwise, that\u2019s not a good sign.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2.80143118.jpg\" alt=\"Michael van Gerwen looking worried on stage \" data-title=\"BetMGM Premier League \u2013 Night Fifteen \u2013 P&amp;J Live\" data-copyright-holder=\"PA Wire\" data-copyright-notice=\"PA Wire\/PA Images\" data-credit=\"Andrew Milligan\" data-usage-terms=\"Use subject to restrictions. Editorial use only, no commercial use without prior consent from rights holder.\"  \/>Van Gerwen has had an unusually poor Premier League campaign (Andrew Milligan\/PA)<\/p>\n<p>Aspinall, who won night 15 in Aberdeen last week to put himself in pole position to qualify for London, is not fearing Van Gerwen.<\/p>\n<p>He said: \u201cWe all know Michael\u2019s not the same animal as he was a few years ago. I\u2019ve got Michael in my pocket at the minute.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think he\u00a0looked really nervous last Thursday, even in the build-up before the game. He just didn\u2019t look his usual confident self.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll the pressure is on him. What he\u2019s got to do to qualify is a tough ask.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael van Gerwen laughed off suggestions he is in Nathan Aspinall\u2019s pocket ahead of their Premier League showdown&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8817],"tags":[748,393,4884,1620,16,16849,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-120188","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sheffield","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-sheffield","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-uk-sports","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114546675970149368","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}