Daniel is just rubbish - he consistently overpromises and underdelivers in pretty much everything he's done. How many times has he gone in promising big sales and delivered next to nothing or made a hash of his pitch?

Mark is undoubtedly a good salesman who knows how to be assertive rather than aggressive in customer negotiations. Has he been sly? Yes. But he's just playing the game like all the others - it's more that he's the most willing to actually say what he thinks out loud. I don't like him and don't trust him, but he's shown himself to be far more capable than Daniel so far.

As for not PM'ing, well, that's a proven survival tactic particularly in the first half of a series. Stay out of trouble and find other ways to contribute, which is what he's done. He may not be a winner - what's his business idea? - but he's certainly one of the strongest candidates we have this year.

Neither of them will win, Daniel because Al wouldn't invest £2.50 in him and Mark because Al wouldn't trust him as far as Nick could throw him.

He'll keep them in a couple more weeks and then get rid.

I've gone right off Mark because he's sneaky and arrogant. But sadly he's demonstrated more all-round competence than most of them.

Did I mishear last night, but after the focus group when he fed back to Pamela the bad news, did he say "they're not our target group anyway"? (Or did he say " they are our target group"?) He then went on to express private concerns about it being sleazy. Because I immediately thought " you sly bugger". If that is what he said, it was like he manipulated her to stick with the idea but hedged his bets by appearing to disagree.

Anyway, he's horrible to Daniel, yes. But there's something not right in the head about that boy. Daniel seems like a bit of a narcissist. Grandiose, delusional, self-centered, defensive when his self-image gets threatened. There's a reason he's not liked or respected by the others. And I can't think of a single thing he's done that wasn't a f***k-up. He's a major liability.

It feels as though Mark is starting to think he's above everyone in the process, constantly talking up how he is the linchpin to tasks. I think he is a very good candidate but it would be good to see him get taken down a peg, hopefully he PMs a task soon and loses, put things in to perspective for him.

And for what it''s worth, I think Daniel is probably the weakest candidate left, his main strength was supposed to be sales and he can't sell. Plus he was an awful PM.

I don't think Mark is shy in talking himself up, but I get the feeling this has been amplified by the edit so that he can be cut down to size at a later date. I mean, it's not as if the vast majority of Apprentice candidates are modest, is it? The difference with Mark is that he has shown some ability to back up his claims, and he undermines people coolly without shouting at them, which appears sly.

He strikes me as the sort of person who you'd just about tolerate working with because he delivers results, but you wouldn't hurry to become friends with. I've worked with plenty of that type in my time!

He is quite hunky and looks hotter and hotter though.

That's pretty much my opinion of him. He's one of the strongest candidates. If I ever went on Apprentice I would probably act like Mark. It would be pretty hard to stop sounding negative if I was surrounded by such muppets.

Mark's just a bully, because of his size he's gone through life using that as a way of winning arguments and imposing himself on others. Can he sell yes he can, but can he lead, not sure. The way it's going, when he's PM, I bet he'll try to give everyone enough rope to hang themselves should it go wrong.

I noticed last night that the other candidates were starting to see him for what he is.

Daniel's a plonker but I can empathise with him a little. Mark is a bully, and Daniel is not accepting it, which I admire. I loved it when Daniel mocked Mark for use of footballing terms, right in front of Sugar, to Mark's embarrassed silence. Nice slice of revenge for the previous week.

I'm team Daniel purely because he's the underdog.

yep, i let out a little cheer and thought "in ya face ya plonker!!" when daniel did that to mark
a comeuppance that was deserved in my opinion

I'd find it difficult to hold back my disdain too but there's something nakedly aggressive about Mark's approach with Daniel regardless of how calmly he speaks. And the more successful Mark is becoming, the more arrogant and conceited he's getting. I sense some hubris on the horizon. The editing is setting him up for a fall. Maybe it'll happen in the interview episode.

Maybe the show brings this ruthlessness out in people but I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him if I worked with him. He's very competent, yes, and he earns his success but he strikes me as the type whose ambition would have him machinating behind your back. I think he'd be ruthless if he wanted your job or that promotion. And he'd be good at it too because he's subtly undermining and intelligent and just charming enough to convince others.

I'm not sure Mark has really shown an all-round ability. To me he seems like a less likeable and less successful version of Jedi Jim from Series 7, with a bit of a gift of the gab, and an ability to influence people and get people to buy things from him, all of which are useful traits of course, but I think it's equally likely he could be a one-trick pony as be the all-rounder that people are saying he is.

He didn't grasp the nettle is episode over the importance of hits on the youtube video, and it could be argued that the price on the coach trip he was aiming for was too high, given that they did not sell out. It is likely he woud have sold better than Daniel on that task but I doubt he would have sold the remainder of the tickets at £90 plus if he was doing the selling instead of Daniel, and you would have though from his reactions and criticisms that he would have expected to do that. I can't see it. I wouldn't have bought it at that price.

Good series though, after a slow start it's picking up nicely. Other than Bianca, because she has made some bad mistakes, and perhaps Sanjay & Lauren, because as of now they've not shown much, I could see any of the others in the final 4.

I'm sure Mark was convinced Lord Sugar was going to fire Daniel.

His face was a study when Daniel came back..

It meant he realised Lord Sugar must see something in Daniel- and as Mark is the arch manipulator you could see he was a bit confused as to what Daniel's survival meant for his own chances.

Daniel's a plonker, but a nice plonker. Mark's just a bully, and doesn't come across as a nice person.

Reading in between the lines of the edit last week I think that Mark ,though on the offensive towards Daniel, was mostly in the right - even if some of his tactics are dubious at best. I think he's playing a very clever and spiteful game which I don't like but he seems pretty business savvy which is more than I can say for most of the remaining candidates.

As I said before Daniel has dug himself a hole and Lord Sugar has basically told him, climb out of the hole quickly or you'll find yourself fired before you can protest "But Lord Sugar..." and I don't think he can get of the hole. I will say it can't be any easier when Mark is clearly there trying to keep him in the hole and whilst I don't like that there is some substance to Mark now where as Daniel is being portrayed as actually being a bit deluded and there is nothing at all to back his claims up.

I think Daniel is the pathetic one. He tries to take the credit himself, yet he is the one who struggles to do anything. He calls himself a salesman, last week he couldn't sell a bunch of coach tickets, this week he couldn't sell a board game, other weeks his pitching skills have been poor, "I wouldn't wear this product" who says such a thing.

Mark yet again last week stepped up, and was praised for it by his team, you didn't see them praising Daniel. If they had lost last week he would of been fired. This week despite the board game being a terrible idea, at least Mark managed to shift some.

For me Mark has done everything right so far, apart from stepping up as a project manager, if given the chance & he delivers then I can see him in the final for sure, if he fails then his potential will go tits up.

Team Daniel.

I thought they wanted us to support Mark's views from the last few edits, so I was glad to see them knock him down in the boardroom and point out some of his flaws
Hopefully, the only way is down for him now. Definitely my least favourite remaining.

Everybody in that house is a 'snake', 'coward', etc. I hate them all (not literally of course) just as I should. These people aren't there to be liked. They're business men and women, not generally known to be nice within big companies. LS himself really doesn't seem like a nice person at all but look where he is.

I prefer Mark as an Apprentice. Daniel was bad last week and this week. He's not being used as a 'scapegoat'. His business is 'Pub quizzes' he should've been an expert at this task. Yet he wrote the sexist, moronic questions and tried to worm his way out of it as usual. The idea was alright - he was being overly negative from the beginning and considering he hated it so much because it was 'sleazy' you would think he would've tried his hardest to make it not sleazy - he was in full control of the actual game and Q's.

Mark is the better business man in my opinion and Daniel has lost his way.. If he had a way in the first place. And I don't what Sugar was on about with Mark in the boardroom yesterday, yeah he's not been PM but he's consistently been a great seller and talker. He was able to make light of that awful game whereas Daniel was a terrible sales man. And what about that time he said he wouldn't even wear the product he was selling?

I don't think that's true. I don't see anything wrong personally with Felipe, Lauren, Roisin, Sanjay or Solomon - not that I necessarily do with the others, but those individuals seem to have a reasonable amount of decorum, as do some who have gone before such as Jemma, Ella Jade, Nurun and Lindsay.

I also think that Lord Sugar comes across as a pretty decent person. It's obvious that that 'I am absurdly belligerent' attitude is a bit of an act. A lot of successful past candidates have said very positive things about people, and apparently he often makes an effort to stay in touch with candidates that he likes, regardless of whether or not they actually won.

This. I was literally cheering when Pamela was rightfully given the boot last night. Pity she was too stupid to figure out Mark's machinations.

Lol at posters holding Mark up as a contender for the title - what programme have y'all been watching? All I get from him is insufferable, passive-aggressive, insecure bully/one-trick pony all rolled into one. His illiterate idioms are a window into why he may suffer from low self-esteem and whilst I don't think Daniel will get much further, if he lasts longer than Mark this will have been a brilliant series for me.

Mark is a bully.

Don't know why people have been fooled into believing that Mark is some talented businessman. He's a good seller, but Lord Alan isn't looking for an employee. He needs someone with the vision and common sense to start up their own business. Mark has shown no indication yet that he is anything more than a passive-aggressive, narcissistic, manipulative salesmen. And he may not even be good at that in the real world - persuading people face to face to buy a small amount of goods on Apprentice task is very different from real world selling, unless you're a small-time tradesman. In the real world, you need the vision to produce something that people want, and you need good people skills - not hard selling - to network, and brand your business, to build up your customer/client base and keep them returning.

Mark may have been a good candidate when Lord Alan was still looking for an employee - Mark is the persuasive, devious type that might make their way to the upper hierarchies of someone else's organisation, and he's bright enough, but there's no evidence that he can pioneer his own organisation.

Daniel for me. I don't like the way he's being treated by the others. I may not like him, but I dislike the behaviour of the others more.

Mark is a much better candidate, but Daniel came across much better last night. Bring on Mark as PM next week!

Who knows, maybe it will be like Adam and Jade in Series 8 and suddenly they'll get on really well...