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James Wade could be made for the Premier League format

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The BBC's David Croft looks at the betting for the upcoming Darts Premier League

The Premier League is back next week, bigger and hopefully better than ever. Certainly bigger with 60,000 tickets already sold for the 15 dates including 6,000 alone for the night in Liverpool breaking the PDC attendance record.

For those not familiar with the format of the Premier League, the premise is very simple. The top six players in the PDC order of merit plus two wild card picks compete for the title of Premier League champion. Each player plays the other twice on a home and away basis and the top four in the table qualify for the semi finals with the winners battling it out in the final.

So it's a long road ahead for players and punters alike, with the big question, can anyone out there beat Phil Taylor? The Power has never been beaten in the three previous years of the Premier League. That's 44 matches and 3 titles, an amazing record but one that has to come to an end and possibly on the first night.

Taylor opens up against James Wade, a match that could prove to be as tricky as his first round tie at the world championships. Back then Taylor survived match points against him before beating Michael Van Gerwin. Next Thursday Wade might not let him off the hook.

Taylor is a [3.05] favourite with Betfair and that's hardly surprising given that in 11 of his last 14 Premier League matches he's averaged over a hundred. But what Phil Taylor will we see?

The man whose brilliance has brought him 13 world titles? Or the tired, shadow of his former self that we saw at Ally Pally over Christmas? Hopefully a month off will have done wonders for Phil but with so much exhibition work lined up in 2008, I can't help thinking that once again it might leave him drained when it comes to the tournaments. We'll see but for now it's worth a punt on Wade at [4.3]. He likes the format of leg play, not set play, and although he hasn't been seen in the Premier League before, is more than capable of lifting the title at his first attempt.

One little aside for you, I'm told that Phil Taylor will use a new set of Unicorn Darts for the Premier League, aerodynamically tested and state of the art. Will that be a help or hindrance? I'm eager to find out.

So what about the other 6 players in the league this year? Obviously Raymond Van Barneveld has to be taken seriously. A semi finalist in each of the last two years and 5-time world champion, Barney took the PDC by storm hitting a nine dart leg is his first year in the Premier League. On his day I think he's unbeatable but how will he cope with the travelling back and forth from Holland? If it's not a problem then at a price of [4.0] he has to be respect. I make him a certainty for the last four at least.

Talking of travelling, that's going to be the biggest problem faced by the current world champion John Part. It's great to see him back in the Premier League, he played in the inaugural event in 2005, and he could certainly be a force to be reckoned with. But I hear he's planning to commute back and forth from Canada and so many long flights will I fear take its toll. Back in 2005 after starting well, John failed to win a single point after the halfway stage, backing up the point I've just made. Part is available at [13.0], definitely unlucky for some.

Adrian Lewis is back once again and will certainly fare better than his debut last year when he picked up only 2 wins in his first 9 games. Only in the last round did he finally lift himself off the bottom. This year he could well push himself into the last four and is currently priced at [8.0] with Betfair to become Premier League champion.

Terry Jenkins caused the shock of the Premier League last year when beating Raymond Van Barneveld in the semi finals. He's more than capable of doing that again but I have a feeling that this year he might just miss out on the play offs and his price of [13.0] reflects this

Finally my candidates for the bottom spot are Wayne Mardle and Peter Manley. Mardle gets in as the final wild card pick on the back of his tremendous win over Phil Taylor at the world championships, his first win over Phil in 18 attempts on TV. Don't expect many more. Wayne is a top bloke but not a force to be reckoned with in this event. Nor is Peter Manley, rarely do we see him average over 90 for three darts and this could be his last year in the Premier League for a while. Manley has benefited from the change in the way the PDC rankings are worked out - his £50,000 for losing to Phil Taylor in the world championship final kept him near the top - but his form hasn't been anything to shout about since. Deadly on his doubles, but with such poor scoring he might not get many chances to show it.