"When he has this swagger, he's hard to deal with": Luke Littler tells Rotterdam crowd to calm down after hostile reception

Luke Littler was pretty calm during his Rotterdam run as Premier League Darts action continued onto Night 11 but gave it some during his match against Luke Humphries after he received the hostile reception that he thought himself that he would get.

Littler went on to lose in the final against to Jonny Clayton who keeps winning and managing to build his lead atop the Premier League Darts table. But after the incident with Gian van Veen in Manchester, the fans in Holland very much showed exactly how they felt about the World Champion.

Famously Littler too isn't too revered either in Germany and has often boycotted tournaments there apart from majors due to the reception he gets. He told the fans to calm down during his tie with Humphries.

"It was exactly what I expected, the boos and whistles," Littler told Sky Sports. "But I knew as soon as I got on stage I could do my job."

Wayne Mardle on commentary praised Littler for having that bit of swagger as he tried his hardest to not let it get to him no matter how hard that was. "Littler said he will not react [to the crowd], but he has just reacted there - and they don't like it!" Sky Sports' Wayne Mardle said on commentary.

"I think he's had enough of not reacting. He is strutting and really giving it now.

"When he has this swagger, he's hard to deal with. He's giving it the full repertoire. I like it!"

But he also said prior to the night that he had concerns about Littler in particular how he would deal with the crowd in Rotterdam. Littler copped further criticism this week for his reply to it where he said he gestured at his partner Faith and his family and not Van Veen so it is a story which has developed further airtime and layers.

But Mardle hoped he'd win the week even to send the narrative away. “You have to say there are things that he does so well and things that I think are not done as well as they could have been," said Mardle on Sky Sports.

“There have been a few occasions at the World Championships where he annoyed the crowd with some of his comments.

“What happened against Gian van Veen — look, he got caught doing it. He got caught egging on the crowd and he said it was his family.

“It kind of doesn’t matter, but this is what is happening now and he has to put that to bed. He really has. He just has to come up here and play. Hopefully for him he wins and just puts it to bed week in and week out because it will die off.

“It has died off with Gerwyn Price. The thing with Gezzy and Luke is they do set each other off. If he reacts to Gezzy then there may be fuel to the flames. I don’t know. At the moment it is kind of running away from Luke Littler. He was top and he is now not. He has got concerns for the first time in his career in my opinion.”