Only 1 can win.

The question isn't "who will win" or "how many will win", but:

How many 'contenders' are there amongst them.

I think 1...

Then there was 10 and very few men

Jim now has no chance.

I was thinking that, but then Lordalan said that he admired his behaviour "in a way". We could be being set up for a "this is what it takes to succeed in business" ending. Simon Ambrose was shown to be openly manipulative and aggressively strategic, and also someone who dodged boardrooms solely by leaning on friends not to take him. But he still won. It depends where Jim's edit moves from here - he's not quite a villain yet.

Jim has no chance. I think Tom will win.

I'd love Tom to win too. He's the only one in this series to be shown to actually be using some business skills in working out profit/loss using the information they are given to work out the best business strategy. Remember how Stella got praised to high heavens early on last year for doing some basic accounting in that task?

It all depends on whether the series will stick to the same format as previous years. I wonder if anyone knows whether there will be an interview task this year? Surely that episode would be better replaced with one where the candidates pitch their business idea to Alan and co. In which case Tom might do well since he invents things.

I think Jim's chances took a severe bashing last night. Lord Sugar likes his winners to be determined and improve on past mistakes, I don't think he'd be too keen on 'this is my new business partner who intimidated people and manipulated them to take the fall for him when he made mistakes'.

If he was looking for an Apprentice I think the likes of Leon, Glenn, Susan, Helen etc would be strong candidates young and probably do what they are told.

However he isn't he needs someone a bit tougher.

I actually think Zoe or Natasha will win now

I've come round to Melody. She is the only one whose contribution I can remember from each week.

I just have to forgive her Dalai Lama, Al Gore stuff.

Mwah, Helen is the same age as Stella was last year (which means that she is actually one of the older contestants, only Jim, Natasha and Edna are older then her).

I like Tom but unless he can be more forceful with his ideas then I don't think he has a chance of winning.

I think Jim is still in with a good shot, I don't think LS would want him as an apprentice but I think his talent of talking himself out of trouble and getting others to do what he says could make for a good buisness partner.

I can't see Leon winning as he showed weakness in the boardroom and Glenn only limped to a win yesterday when he picked the wrong guy to pitch and couldn't control the sub team.

Out of the girls I think Melody maybe the best or Zoe. Edna had a good start but has since faded and Susan blew it on the beauty task. Helen I had to look up because I forgot she existed and Natasha is sucking upto LS which isn't a good move so may be gone soon.

I can't seem to find much to say about most of the girls but that might not be a bad thing, since we only get to know them well when the make mistakes.

Tom for me.

I started liking him in week 1 because I liked him (tautology, but true) but he's showing more intelligence and acumen (or the edit is showing more of his acumen) as the weeks go by so perhaps he is a real contender. Would love him to win. Apart from anything else, he would keep coming up with ideas if he were the business partner. Some of them would be daft, no doubt (traffic lights app) but at least ideas would keep coming.

Question: why don't the other contenders take him seriously? It partly seems that they're limited because they don't recognise sense when they hear it, but then perhaps there is a susceptibility in Tom that makes him unsuitable for business... It's an alien world to me. Do people generally get attention by giggling and putting their hand in the air?

Jim has killed himself off. He's the candidate I'm really looking forward to seeing on the Dara O'Brien thing afterwards.
Glen is a terrible manager of people.
Melody, I'm liking her more. She gets on with things.
Zoe seems competent, though perhaps not if she's going to cry over scrap metal.
None of the others really shine out at the mo, except for the wrong reasons...

Tom's brown-nosing severely puts me off him.
"Yes Lord Sugar, sir, as always you are right and no-one would dare question your divine wisdom" *dribbles*

It's so awfully cringy. lol

I actually thought Glenn managed his team very well. He had lost control over them (because they were a bitchy lot) but set it back on track with a simple phone call, and was shown to be the far more adult one as Zoe was being childish and just hung up.

Nevertheless, it wasn't mentioned again and the next day you saw everyone with all their noses the same way again. I think the fact he had problems and overcame them shows him to be a far better people manager than someone to who everybody just says yes and isn't tested.

Though Tom is the only one so far to question Sugar's opinion (the phone app task), albeit politely.

I'd like to say Tom has a chance, but he needs to be more forceful, rather than sitting back and saying "I told you so" in the boardroom.

Jim I think may have killed his chances after this week. Nick knows his game and Lord Sugar is catching on fast. And we all know how he feels about blaggers.

Leon is a nice guy with some good ideas, but I don't think he has the edge that will put him into the final round. He'll last until near the end though I think.

Glenn's ego will finish him off. He completely alienated his team this week and managed to win by a cat's whisker! If he's still there by the interview task, that will be one to watch!

Melody I think is one to watch. She always contributes and speaks up, and her pitch this week was really good! She's not the most savvy of the bunch, but she makes up for it in other areas.

Edna is definitely a passenger, and her stop is approaching fast! Totally useless, just goes with the flow and it's purely by dumb luck she has been on the winning team each week.

Susan I thought was a real contender at the beginning, but after the disaster in the beauty task, I don't think she is cut out for a business partnership with Lord Sugar.

I think the fact that I had to look Helen up to remember her speaks for itself. Doesn't stand out from the crowd and like Edna is still here purely by being on the winning team.

Natasha could be a dark horse, but she needs to voice her opinions more during the tasks rather than just in the boardroom.

I'm on the fence when it comes to Zoe. Sometimes she comes across as someone who could do well as Lord Sugar's business partner. Other times she looks totally out of her depth.

Oo, I dunno. The cat team ended up with that awful presentation because Glenn didn't listen to Leon's concerns. It was clear Leon didn't want to do it and didn't think he'd be good at it. Would you choose that individual for the presentation? It only made sense to pick Leon if Glenn meant to throw him under a bus (and to give the man credit, I don't think he did). Simple misjudgement based on not knowing his team's strengths. Susan was the one who ended up managing Leon. That was a good intervention on her part. She might not sell much tanning crap but she does know how to deal with people.

Don't get me wrong, the other grouping (the Zoe lot) was stroppy but the situation was badly handled and it's the team leader's job to handle the situation.

The woman on Your Fired accused Vincent of not listening. But it looked like the same problem with both team leaders -- a failure to listen brought on by excess of arrogance.

His team didn't like his idea, but they accepted it anyway, so he hadn't lost control. I don't think his phone improved anything. Zoe hung up because he had nothing constructive to say and she doesn't suffer fools gladly.

Melody and Susan for the final two!!!!!!!

Helen and Tom for the final two!

Susan as she already has a beauty business of her own and LS sees huge profit margins in that. Zoe was way overboard in her criticism of Susie in the beauty task and merely setting her up for the fall should the team have lost.

Tom as he is an inventor and someone the Dragons would pick to invest in so no reason why LS wouldn't depsite him appearing non-Apprentice like.

Thank you!

Eventually somebody talks sense.

It was all horribly exagerrated, considering it was Susan's interest & enthusiasm that got them the fake tanning booth in the first place. Without her they would've won. And also they needed to have had 450 pounds less profit to lose to the other team. Meaning if they did use that 90 pounds instead of 40, they still would have won...

Indeed, Susan's inability to sell in tis context has been blown up out of all proportion.

She is probably used to selling to people who actually may want to buy her products. She may be an excellent salesperson in those circumstances.

The ability to buttonhole people and try and get them to buy things that they did not, originally, have any intention of buying is a somewhat overrated skill in my opinion, particularly in relation to TA where neither an apprentice or business partner would be expected to stand around in public cold selling.