That's probably true.
I got the impression that she was a good candidate last week, but it was based on about 30 seconds of overall footage of her looking busy and talking loud. lol

I think she looked better than she was last week because a major failing (as it was portrayed) was that there was too much finesse and not enough selling/work, and Maria seemed to be very busy and to be pushing people to start selling and/or do some work. I did think at the time she might be one of those people who progress reasonably far mostly because they're all about the bottom line, which Lordalan likes. But then this week it turned out "WE NEED TO SELL LOADS!" was all she had to offer, regardless of the context.

Maria could see the contradiction. She couldn't articulate it. Lord Sugar couldn't either - he blathered on about seondary issues, said it was a bad job all around and kept on saying how upset he was. Jane was forceful, decisive and reasonably organised as a PM and people followed her. They got from A to Z in the task in time, with less rowing than in week one. However she couldn't tell a good idea from bad one, couldn't pick out the right advice, and had naive views about sales figures. She was a good PM in the way that many unsuccessful people in management roles are - things look good, but the ideas don't work.

Fortunately for her, Jane had the sense not to take Katie or Laura into the boardroom as they were articulate enough to point all that out. Zara from the Young Apprentice would have done it too.

Not sure being articulate helps in the final rounds though - he's got past history of not going for people who are very good at it and he gets rid of lawyers almost on sight. Tim , Michelle and Zara win, and Simon's education and accent fits the job that series , but otherwise the series is stuffed with cases where the most articulate or smartest candidates are fired for no good reason or come second.

I would have Fired Jenna because she was delegated the numbers role (with Gabrielle) and they both couldn't get it right. Maybe Gabrielle could have been dragged in with Jenna on that basis, though I'm not suprised Jane opted for Maria as she couldn't take Katie in. Speaking of Katie, she still has the "doesn't do anything/much" tag at the moment from others, though she did seem to have a more productive role this week than last. I wonder if we're either not being shown she is this useless (as it didn't appear that this task) or some of the girls just have a personal problem with her as reason for why it's cropped up again.

I don't think Maria nodding off displayed a lack of contribution in the task in total, though I do understand why it wouldn't look great that she couldn't keep her eyes open when other qually tired people could. But this argument from Jane that she contributed least overall, I'm not sure about. Gabrielle (who I like) and Jade didn't seem that prominent in the task either (unless that's just down to the editing and not getting enough air time to show this).

I would have liked to see Maria as a PM first before going, because I don't think she was the most dire on this task (I think Jane was worse in some ways). Jane went against the focus group findings and delivered the million units line, so I think she was easily joint top of the pile (along with Jenna) when came to getting the chop but, alas, not. However having seen Maria on the Fired show, she didn't seem to have a very bothered attitude about the process so, maybe in the long run, it was the right thing for the show and for her too that she went. I didn't take to her at all on You're Fired, she didn't seem to have any real reflection of what she learnt about herself, regretted etc. My hm said she was pretending to not care about being Fired but, I think it's possible that because she's not a suit type person that getting the cut just wasn't as big a deal for her.

I don't think I'd include Ifti in that group, as I think he effectively resigned.

But if she's inarticulate, as some have said, she'd probably struggle to convey what she'd learnt. I just think she was a bit nervous (as I've said) on YF.