Michael Smith returns to Manchester on nine April determined to silence the doubters who say his Premier League window has closed. The AO Arena has witnessed some of his highest peaks including a one hundred and ten average in twenty twenty three yet Bully Boy enters Night Nine outside the top eight after being overlooked for a permanent berth and now banking on a challenger cameo to remind the darting public of his pedigree.

Smith’s year on the floor circuit has flashed promise with three ProTour semi finals but television results have been flat and critics have highlighted a worrying slide in double top accuracy. In response the St Helens thrower spent a fortnight at the Target headquarters fine tuning barrel grip texture and emerges with a marginally heavier twenty five gram setup he believes will improve grouping under pressure.

His immediate task is formidable. The draw lands him opposite Gerwyn Price in the quarter finals and the Welshman leads their head to head this season four two. Yet Smith can look to their epic World Championship semi final in which he overturned a three one deficit on this very stage. Should he repeat the trick a semi final with Luke Humphries or Rob Cross would follow and a maiden nightly crown would reignite talk of a full time recall for twenty twenty six.

Manchester fans have embraced Smith as an honorary Northerner and ticket records tumbled once his name was announced as stand in for Chris Dobey. Promoters are staging a pre show bullseye challenge against local youth champions and Smith has volunteered to coach the juniors during rehearsal.

The Premier League history books show that six challengers have won nightly honours since the format change. If Smith joins that club the noise inside the AO Arena will echo all the way down the M sixty two and those doubts may finally be drowned out.