Stephen Bunting makes damning claim about Luke Littler after he angers Michael van Gerwen

Stephen Bunting made a damning clam about Luke Littler following on from Michael van Gerwen's remarks about him.

Prior to this year's eagerly anticipated Premier League getting underway at the SSE Arena in Belfast, the eight stars who will grace the oche took part in a special promotional photoshoot.

The photoshoot took place at the slipway outside the Titanic museum but Littler delayed it as he was late.

With seven other people waiting on the reigning world and Premier League champion, a furious Van Gerwen laid Into Littler and urged the PDC to 'stop treating him like a baby' when speaking to the media.

"They need to stop treating him as a baby. He’s not a baby anymore, he’s 18-years-old," he fumed.

"It happens. He has to learn. You have to learn the hard way.

"It’s a professional sport so you have to be responsible for your actions, simple as that."

He continued: "If he turns up late for an interview, I don’t really mind.

"But seven other people were waiting for him, that’s not really nice. But it is what it is."

Van Gerwen proceeded to do an interview while he waited for Littler and Bunting, who is pals with the Warrington wonderkid, even made an admission.

Luke Littler and Stephen Bunting shake hands. Image: Getty

'The Bullet', who lost to Littler in the semi-finals, said that the rest of the pack were left "frozen" as they waited for Littler to turn up, while in a discussion with media.

Van Gerwen had said that Littler was 45 minutes late but 'The Nuke' claims it was 25 minutes late and his excuse was that he accidentally fell asleep in his Hilton hotel room.

Littler responds to Van Gerwen

"I fell asleep," Littler said.

"I was in the city. I was upstairs. Oh, I was 25 minutes late. Michael called me lazy. I was just laughing at him."

Conveniently, Littler faces Van Gerwen in the quarter-final match on the opening night on Thursday - in a rematch of the 2025 World Darts Championship final at Alexandra Palace.

Littler beat 7-3 to become the youngest world champion in history, but is aware that Van Gerwen is going to be "up for it and "hungry" for revenge.