I really don't think Debra deserved the win this week. It was only through Philip standing up to her and pushing his product idea forwards that the team won.

Debra really showed a lack of leadership skills to me, even though she likes to shout and bark as if she is SA himself. In the pitch when John Lewis wanted exclusivity, she should have taken control instead of weasling out a "We would need to discuss that as a group". She looked more lost than anything else, and obviously wasn't counting on such interest from them. Yasmina really showed some incredible initiative to attempt to negotiate, but it was also clear that she didn't really know what to reasonably pitch. She just knew she had to do something, which speaks volumes as the rest sat mute.

I personally feel she was too busy thinking how badly Lorraine was doing, and was putting together a little portfolio of how she was going to shred her to pieces in the boardroom if things went wrong.

The fact Debra also went with Lorraine to do the pitch when she was clearly not happy with the choice didn't sit well with me. Debra should have had the strength to put her foot down, but instead seemed to only want to set Lorraine up to fail, thus failing the team, and to come out guns blazing in the boardroom to pin the whole blame on her. We even saw her begin her attack in the opening statement about her teams performance... Luckily for Lorraine, which Debra also mentioned, the product seemed to sell itself. Otherwise there is no doubt in my mind who Debra would have pinned the entire blame on.

Then for her to sit so smugly and act as if she had single handedly won the task when she was talking to the other team... Wow I was stunned. I think even SA noted how her team had carried her through by commending Philip and Yasmina.

Definitely want to see her out ASAP. But then again, she is one of those powerful personalities that might just stick around till the end...

What I want to know about Debra is how long are her legs?

She looks about 7 feet tall.

Agreed! She seems to think that leading is done by a lot of shouting and interfering and micromanaging....

Nick put her right in an aside to the camera when she hugely interfered with Yasmina's photographing, and Siralan put her right when he told her she had Philip and Lorraine to thank for the win....

I'm sure Nick had a word with síralan about that one...

I think Debras card is marked by SAS

I was glad the TEAM won, as they had the better product

I am beginning to like Phil

I think Debra is very good at being a team leader and controlling what people in her team should be doing, but I think that she needs to be managed herself so that she has a clear idea of what she should be doing, and what to expect of/obtain from the people in her team. She demonstrated that when negotiating with John Lewis and was stumped by their interest - didn't know how to respond, thank goodness for Yasmina stepping in. Which was surprising really, as Debra is a Senior Sales person, no?

Debra was very lucky this week. It was down to Phillip, Lorraine and to an extent, Yasmina that her team won.

Nah, she had a lucky escape. Phil came up with a decent product, or she would have been stuffed. I think she will get quite far in the series though, she is capable, albeit unpleasant.

he commended Philip and the one who did the pitch (Lorraine?), not yasmina

Very much agree with you. Was it the 'Exclusivity' question that you were referring to as her being 'stumped', as this has brought contestants down before.

She was very lucky this week. She didnt seem to have a clue with what idea to go with and in the end it was Phillip with his huge enthusiasm for his product idea that pushed the group into going with it. I also didnt understand if she was so unhappy with Lorraine doing the pitch why she didnt give it to someone else. Maybe she was just looking for someone to take the blame if they lost the task though Phillip made sure that Sir Alan knew in the boardroom that Lorraine did a great job and none of them could have done any better.
Glad Sir Alan made a point of commending Phillip and Lorraine rather than letting Debra take all the credit.

She was 100% lining up her fall guy with Lorraine. she is verrrrry calculating!

This task showed Debra for who she is. All mouth and no action.

I'm glad the team won, thanks to Philip and Lorraine, who I must say, looked scared by Debra. Quite rightly too.

I hope Debra is not on our screens for much longer.

Debra is so unpleasant. She is hard and domineering. Ooooh did you see the look on her face when Lorraine dared to challenge her for PM

I hope she gets fired soon- and let's see her up against Bra Lady on You're Fired

Yes thanks for that. I realised my mistake last night when I was reading the various other posts. Didn't think anyone would notice though

It seemed to me she was more active than James. If anything, she was too active, eg micro-managing the photo shoot. However, she did get it done in time, unlike James. We also see her managing actively when she halted discussion of the foot-exercising because she felt there wasn't enough time, and when she agonised about whether to risk letting Lorraine pitch. Overall, she was the better of the two project leaders this week.

No one likes Debra, but I have to admire her determination, and she deserves a lot of credit for last night's win.

I've been reading this blog, which summarises it brilliantly.

http://www.theapprenticeforum.co.uk/

To be honest, I don't think she deserves much credit at all. For me, Ignite were carried by Philip's rather good product idea, and Lorraine's pitching, which got better everytime she did it and ended up being quite confident and did a good job of selling the product. I fail to see what Debra brought to the team to be honest other than having a loud gob.

Rewatched the episode tonight and in comparison to James at least she had some control over the team and the process of making the product. Most of the strong parts of the task came from others(Phillip and Lorraine in particular) but she did recognise that the product was the most important part of the task and she did abandon her ankle idea after doing the research and being told it did not actually do anything useful in terms of exercise.

They were saved abit by Phillip's late modification of his idea(he was always trying to adapt the concept of the Swedish Ball) but she did make a decision to go with that when Lorraine was trying to argue for the ankle extension again. Rewatching it again though Phillip was the strongest member of the group and key to the win.

The one thing about the episode which showed a weakness in Debra was her lack of faith in Lorraine when it actually seems Lorraine's pitch was very good and actually comes from a sales background. Indicates her judgment is not as good as it should be but then she was not alone in that respect Neither Mona, Jasmina or Nuurul seemed to rate Lorraine and I can't remember Paula or Phillip supporting her until Phillip made his intervention in the boardroom.

Just seems like Debra hate this thread.

If Lorraine and Phillip won the task, then it wasn't just Debra who got away with the task, yes she was team leader, but her team had another 2/3 members who were also lucky to escape.

She did a decent job, it was a horrible task, if you're not creative, as Debra said she wasn't, then leading other creative people was the right way forward, otherwise she would have been attacked in a thread for doing nowt.

I didn't really think Lorraines pitch was very good, she didn't come across very confidently and worst of all she seemed to be reading it. Debra was right in her critique of her first run through (which was possibly the worst Apprentice Pitch ever) no idea what the product was after about a minute of the pitch, Lorraine needed guidance, Debra gave it.

Nargis....

Indeed, I was watching the Worst Decisions Ever programme on Youtube last night, and both Mani and Nargis' pitches were absolutely dreadful. Lorraine's first pitch, whilst it was bad, was considerably better than those 2, plus Lorraine got better and more confident through the task, whereas Nargis and Mani were just as rubbish in all 3 pitches.

cant really argue with any posts here i hope she is next for the boot all she seems to do is look for ways to make the other contestants look worse than she is

she was a better leader than the guy on the other team but lets face it anyone of us would have done a better job than him he was very lucky to stay in

Philip who came up with a good idea seems to have the attributes required to lead well was very good at puting his point across was willing to stand up and be counted and was willing to stand up for another team mate when he really didnt have to and was at least trying to motivate his team

he did everything debra should have but didnt

I generally agree, but the thread title is meaningless - as it wasn't a case of "deserving to win" or not - it was based solely on SALES!!!

JJ

I thought it reflected to Debra's credit that she allowed Lorraine to make the pitch. Lorraine really wasn't very good to begin with and I don't think Debra's judgement was bad when she observed that.

However, Lorraine really wanted to do the pitch. She was the opposite of Majid. Majid was content to sit in the background, and got fired for it. Lorraine pushed herself forward into a visible role. Debra queried whether she was good enough to pull it off, but let her try anyway. Some people think she was setting Lorraine up to fail. I think she was being generous and giving her a chance to shine. Sometimes you have to do that with subordinates - give them opportunities that will stretch them so they will grow.

It was the right decision. Lorraine's eagerness to do it was a big factor in it - she spend ages practising and refining the pitch. I thought Kate was better, and they won because of the product not the pitch, but she did OK. She was lucky that they got the John Lewis meeting last, because it was the only one that mattered and she had two practice goes first. The other team only had one practice go.

In Debra case, I am referring more to the fact that she was critical of Lorraine's pitch in the boardroom when talking about how Lorraine was perceived by the customers. Debra's interpretation of the events is contradicted by Phillip who said Lorraine did a fantastic job and by SAS who described her pitch as exceptional work, which was presumably fed back to him. Such comments suggest Lorraine was alot better than 'OK' when the pitch was delivered.