Lord Sugar denigrates back-room roles ("hiding away") so Luisa's choice is perfectly rational.

I'd rather tasks were structured differently to avoid this dilemma but we are where we are.

Luisa had already admitted to hiding away by not putting herself forward as PM, despite being an obvious candidate for that in this task. At this stage there are no unimportant backroom roles, Sugar clearly knows this. In fact the kitchen role (in real life) would have been the more important creative one (as the guy on YF said). Unfortunately this task was decided purely on the branding as the team which produced better food lost.

That said I don't think Neil and Luisa'a branding was very good either. They got carried away by their own ideas (the graphics bloke creating the design was clearly cringing). Oh My Pow was a ridiculous name for such a product and the packaging reminded me of this.

Still, no matter how blatantly Luisa behaved the award for the snake of the task has to go to Myles for his smug manipulation of Alex.

Luisa and Neil worked well together, it has to be said. Though why Fran was forced into the kitchen with no cooking skills whatsoever was beyond me.

They are mutually distrustful and manipulative with a ruthless streak,
I think they are both horrible rotten people.

So they could be front of house and blame her if the food was horrible .

lol Cillit Bang I was wondering why it looked familiar
the YF panel was also spot on when they said it looked like something you see in South Korea or Tokyo when hammered
Louisa and Neil deserve each other as both are unlikeable imo

I'm not sure Neil respects Louisa. He went along with the we are a great team, so as not to cause problems. The packaging idea was Neils, he came up with the design. Not sure who chose the colours.

Louisa was just there, as she knows Neil is the strongest player. She wanted to be around him, be a 'yes man' so if they lost, he would blame Francesca and not Louisa.

If Neils team had lost, Louisa should have been fired, she was lucky they won.

I doubt it's respect, it looks like a mix of mutual fear, lust and strategy.

I don't see any respect at all. I think it's more game playing by Lou. If they had lost, she would have eaten him alive. I doubt she would have pushed Franny under the bus. Franny is not a serious contender, so she would have kept her on so less competition towards the end. You know, more like keep the weaker contestant on.

Haha, nicely summed up. I suppose 'mutual fear' is distantly related to respect.

I'm not so sure. Her main aim would be to ensure her survival that week. Had they lost the best boardroom strategy to stay in would be to hang Francesca out to dry. Neil is too strong an opponent to take chances with.

Got to disagree with you.
Don't know why you think Neil's future is any more secure than anyone elses.

I did think however that Louisa was using all of her well-documented females wiles to keep Neil on her side.

Imho Louisa would sell her own granny to make herself look good.:yawn:

I don't think Neil is secure at all, but he is more secure than Francesca. The most important thing each week is to stay in the game, not concern yourself with who you might be up against in the final week. As such Francesca, the non-tasting cook, would be best one to attack. She would be the obvious one for Sugar to sack so why fight against the tide. Neil didn't do too much wrong except do a boring (but successful) pitch so would be harder to put in the frame for the sack.

Neil would be a dangerous opponent to pick a fight with in the boardroom. Francesca would probably buckle.

Why?
I must be missing these strengths you are attributing to Neil.

Why do you think he is a 'safer' candidate than Francesca?

Fran is so poor I can't put it into words.

That corporate drivel that came out of her mouth a few weeks back, jeez...her mouth moved but Mr Brain had no involvement whatsoever.

Corporate drivel/business school speak has a lot to answer for imho.

Its all testicles and extrement.:yawn:

[quote=skippy upwood;66674833]I think Luisa was trying to set it up so that Francesca was fired from the start of the task (just as she successfully tried to get Jason fired)

...lying about her cooking ability (as KB to her credit twigged)

.....flirting with Neil

.....giving extremely complicated instructions to a self confessed hopeless cook

I used to be pro-Luisa but she's really shown her true colours in the last two tasks.

It would be awful if she reached the F2, let alone my

Fixed my typo.

I think Neils future is more secure than that of Lousias and Frans. He is defiantly the better candidate on that team.

However as we know, its got nothing to do with how good a candidate you are, but what your business plan is.

It's a bit of both, really. A lot of viewers tend to underestimate the importance of the business plan - any candidate, no matter how competent, is dead in the water without one (Helen Milligan, for instance). But don't underestimate the importance of the person. It's not so much about whether they are good at specific aspects of the tasks, but does Sugar feel this is a person he can work with and trust as a partner, or are they someone he feels will be more trouble than they are worth? Both aspects - business plan and person - are equally important. Investors want to see both.

Have you not been watching the show at all?

The candidate with the best track record by far is Neil. He was the one that led his team to that massive £33,000 victory in the caravan task compared to £2000 sales on the other team. He's too strong a candidate for Luisa to take on, and she knew this which is why she basically agreed with everything he said and tried to stitch up Francesca. As someone else said, she was lucky that the team won. If it came down to her vs. Neil, she would lose.

Luisa is on borrowed time and it's probably only her business plan that is keeping her in now. Lord Sugar took a clear disliking to her after abdication-gate. On performance throughout the process, Neil is the frontrunner.

Even before the prize was changed, there were people who did very well on the tasks only to come unstuck at the interview stage. The obvious example is Paul Tulip.

Yes, agreed.

Luisa showed her nasty side again during this task. Clearly she knew the most about cooking but she stitched Francesca up by making sure she was the one doing the cooking when she was completely inept. This meant that should they have failed the task Francesca would have been in firing line and not her. Their product was awful and they were very lucky they didn't lose.

As for Neil, Luisa obviously realises she is up against someone that is much harder for her to manipulate but she still managed it by claiming that she would be better placed in the marketing team and pretending that she knew very little about cooking when she was probably the most competent.

All in all Luisa demonstrated once again that she is completely out for herself and has no real regard for anyone else.

He's more secure because he's done better overall in tasks than Francesca has and he is a very strong and confident personality. Don't forget Neil had impressed his corporate awayday clients with his inspirational speech. He's therefore very capable of making a strong pitch for his own survival in the boardroom and has done well in earlier rounds which would also help his case. Francesca hasn't really shone at all in comparison.

Do you seriously think Francesca would defend herself better than Neil in a boardroom battle? Especially as she had shot herself in the foot in the task by not tasting the food she prepared.