Half way through and most of them are pants to use todays phrase

It can't be anyonebut Kate or Debra to win surely they seem to have the most allround abilities.

Noorul surely?????

I wouldn't rule Howard or Yasmina out just yet either.

Edit: Actually please, PLEASE let Noorul win!!!

"Noorul, you've got the gift of the gab, you talk posh, and you look posh, I like the cut of your jib, you're hired!"

Debra- Too high strung in high pressure scenarios
Nooral- Is never going to win
Ben-Wont be there too much longer
James- One more time in boardroom and he's gone
Lorraine- After this week she is public enemy no1
Mona- Similar to Debra, she is too vicious in her approach

That leaves:

Yasmina
Phil
Kate
Howard


I can't see Howard winning at all and I believe Kate will crumble in later stages.

This leaves Phil and Yasmina, as I believe a woman will win this year I will go for Yasmina to win the whole thing

For me there are seven possible winners, and it seems like a strong year. Howard, Ben, Philip, James, Debra, Kate, Yasmina. A lot of the unpopular ones are unpopular because of their personalities, rather than because they are weak at business.

I don't think Debra,James or Phillip will win. Sir Alan doesn't tend to hire the aggressive types , and Phillip is far more useless than previous candidates who fit that bill.

Sir Alan employs those who've had considerable years of business experience so that may render Ben,Debra & Howard slightly inexperienced. That may work against them but you never know.

Lorraine,Noorul and Mona have no chance at this stage.

I just think people have come to be too easily pleased after last year's inept lot. I mean , people are being praised to the high heavens just for "coming up with ideas" no matter how crap they are

I remember people moaning when Simon won as people thought he was crap but if he'd been in this year's series I'm pretty sure he would have been described as "brilliant" or whatnot.

There's only 3 people I can seriously imagine winning right now:

Kate
Yasmina
Howard

Then I think people like Philip, Debra, James, Mona and Lorraine have at least a small chance, they could really put themselves in the running over the next number of weeks because they haven't completely blown it.

Noorul and Ben have no chance.

Quite frankly, the more I see, the more I think that there weren't too many contenders to win to start with.

That said, they could still surprise us. I'm not holding my breath but they could...

IMO this is the strongest group of people in the 5 series. Whoever SAS ends with is a strong candidate (with the exception of Noorul, Mona, and Loraine).

It'll be between Debra, Kate, James and Philip - if Philip learns to control his temper when he isn't project leader. Yasmina possibly - but her mistake in the soap task was as bad as Philip's mistake in the cereal task. Debra won't win - she's too much like Saira, Ruth Badger and Claire last year, but that probably means she'll finish runner-up.

I reckon it'll be Yasmina or Debra, can't see any of the guys taking it.

He's taken not very bright people with not much record of doing well in the tasks before so anything is possible . On ability its Kate. Yasmina is impressive but cuts corners. Debra can impress too but will frighten him as being too difficult to work with. Kate is a better leader and has better judgement than either of those two. Philip, James and Ben all have moments of complete stupidity and all of them would be management problems. Mona, Lorraine and Noorul are pretty useless.

His problem is Kate will remind him of Michelle and is even smarter so he has to get himself over both those hurdles and avoid the weak fallback position he has gone for in the past - which is probably someone like Howard or to forget about one of the boy's disasters.

The only similarity between Kate and Michelle is that they are both white,blonde mid 20s , fairly attractive females. Kate has proven herself to be able in tasks whereas Michelle didn't do any such thing , in the early stages at least. I think SAS just saw potential in her in the interviews and was impressed with her achievements despite her hard upbringing. I thought she was a worthy winner but up until the interviews she really hadn't done anything of note (that made the edit anyway).

Yes but thats precisely the simple hurdle he has to get over.

The secondary hurdle is that she's smart.

Whats going for Kate is that he won't find her as frightening as Saira or Ruth or Katie.

I think Michelle was a worthy winner too. Kate has been seen saying some wise things early on but neither made the mistake of jumping in and leading early on when the least capable candidates were minefields waiting to be found out. Michelle does quetly well in the tasks and OK as a team leader and didn't have everyone elses downsides. Its true she had the story but she also had the accomplishments at the end of her Cv to prove where she had got to.

Some of it though is down to the job, Michelle had set up overseas outsourcing and that was involved in that year's job. Lee ended up selling TV screens into railway stations where the management targetted probably suited a blokey apprentice. Simon had to look presentable for his job. Wonder what this year's job is?

Michelle had a very strong first few tasks - arguably stronger than Kate's. She negotiated huge discounts and sold the best on the fruit and veg task and she was a major part of the best "Buy 10 Items" subteam in the show's history. It was the middle of the run where things started to go wrong and she started fading into the background, mostly because Paul was running a gossipy mind**** on everybody stuck on a team with him.

Kate on the other hand didn't deliver much beyond good copy on the first few tasks- she was part of the worst subteam on the first task, and she produced the chickenless chicken wrap and negotiated poorly (admittedly with barely adequate instruction and a client who showed over the course of the episode she wanted to undermine the contestants as much as possible) on the second. Now she's coming on strong, but it did take a while for her to shine through.

Michelle had her bad moments too - remember the boutique task, where she set up a pointless VIP area and seemed to sit there for hours chatting to two French girls? I thought she was damn lucky not to be fired on that task.

Kate may have ben part of the worst subteam on the first task, but I don't think there's much evidence as to what her personal performance there was.

I have to say, by the way, that I absolutely LOVE your Apprentice blog. Compulsive reading for me.

Oh, and on the overall topic of the thread, I see Kate, Yasmina and Howard as the likeliest winners. Noorul, Lorraine and Mona are pretty hopeless; I don't think Sir Alan likes Debra or Ben; James and Philip seem to much like loose cannons for him to take a risk on.

Out of the three named, I think Yasmina or Howard might be his choice. Kate is very good, but he might feel she is too young.

The Top Shop blunder was pretty poor, but that was in week 7, so I wouldn't say it was an early task. Actually I think her very strong performance early on was what got her through that boardroom. That and being in there with Samuel, who was amongst the worst candidates even in that year's field, which was probably the weakest ever.

I'm sure Kate will take you thinking she's too young as a compliment. She's the same age as Yasmina, and three years older than Howard. Actually I'd say she's the ideal age to win - 27, the same age as Simon and only one year older than Tim and Michelle (when they won). If we're ruling people out on age, Ben's definitely gone and Paula and Howard are pushing it. Likewise, Lorraine and probably James are too old. Oh and Noorul is as well, but is anybody really considering him?

And thanks the blog compliment (blogpliment?)

Well, there you go. I had the notion that Kate was more about 23. I withdraw my remark on her being too young then.

I've said Yasmina to win from the start and whilst the mistake over the costings on the soap task has made me question her a little I still think she will win. Kate is also a serious contender and James is my dark horse. I think he has common sense, business acumen and is a good team leader. He is emotional which is why he is only a dark horse rather then a main contender.

James is my dark horse, which means he'll probably be gone next week.

He started off badly but he's shown good management skills, he can sell, has good business acumen and has shown great attention to detail. There will be a reason why SAS asked who came up with the bowl and cutlery rather than the skull and crossbones. He's also shown himself to be a team player. Yes he can be over emotional, but that's because I think that he really wants the job.

Much of that was down to editing. The VIP rooms were provided by TopShop to both teams, and both teams used them on both days.

The first day the team's "style guru" had to pick out TopShop clothing for their team to wear. Tuan picked Sharon as style guru, and Michelle picked herself. (It more or less had to be a woman, and the only other woman was Ruth, who wasn't exactly a style icon.) So both Sharon and Michelle were required by the task to use the VIP room and see how it worked, but in the edit only Michelle was shown.

The second day they used the room to sell to customers. It turned out this was a classic example the trap of giving the teams resources that didn't help. Tuan twigged quite quickly, and pulled Sharon out of her VIP room and put her to work elsewhere. Michelle didn't realise until she got the phone call with the morning sales figures. That was certainly a mistake, but I think it was harder to see she was wasting time than it was for Tuan, because his position gave him more of an overview. With hind-sight, the same person shouldn't have been both team leader and style guru. Again, although both Sharon and Michelle had used the VIP rooms, in the edit only Michelle was shown.

The rest of the task went well for Michelle. She did a much better job with the focus group on the first day, and delegated well. They had lost heavily on the second day in the morning, but when Michelle returned their position improved drastically. It wasn't just that they stopped falling behind; they started catching up, as if Michelle was worth far more than 25% of the team. At the end it was a close finish. We could just as easily blame Ruth for the loss, for failing to sell a high-price item to the boss when he turned up. Having lost, I thought Michelle conducted herself well in the boardroom. She was quiet, but made her points.

I'm often at odds with other viewers, and the TopShop is a classic example. She did make some mistakes, but mostly I was impressed by her performance. (And unimpressed by the editing, which seemed to go out of its way to do a hatchet job on Michelle.)


Agreed. Initially Debra includes her in the "puppets", but by the cafe post-mortem she's putting all the fault on Anita and is no longer judging Kate harshly. (Not that we want to rely on Debra's opinion, but it does support your point.)

Can I ask why you think Debra is difficult to work with?

That's very interesting and does cast things in a different light. How do you know all that? I'm afraid my knowledge is confined to what we saw on the show.