Van Gerwen missed out on the Premier League play-offs this past weekend for the first time and Mardle believes that he is not relaxing and doesn't have the free throwing attitude of before.

"There's no B-game," said Mardle to Sky Sports. "He plays well, or really quite poor."

"The feeling in his hands and fingers just can't be there, because [against Gurney] he was throwing in darts that were going in way too deep. Basically that means he's throwing them flatter. They're leaving the hand differently. It means that he's gripping them differently because of nerves. Nerves and confidence.

"At the moment, he's got worries in his game, and it's so ridiculous to say he needs to relax, but he really needs to find a way to have that fluency and freedom and pace in his game again.

"It used to look so simple for him. It doesn't look so simple anymore. He needs to find something. And he's got three, four weeks off. I don't know what he's doing in the interim before the Grand Prix, but he needs to sort something out.

"His team around him, they can't listen to him saying 'I'm alright, I'm alright'. He's not alright. We don't know what's going on behind the scenes. But on the board, his game is in turmoil.

"There's going to be peaks and troughs, but for me it's the way the darts are going in the board. When they start going in wrong, that's when you know there's an issue. Your mind won't let you relax and won't open quick enough.

"You're effectively not throwing how you always throw, and that's a worry."