..... Why did Andrea fall from grace in week four, and why did Fleur never hit the top spot? Both were clearly big favourites on here - not with me. Any ideas?

I'm not sure really but I'd point you in the direction of the hundreds of other posts on here where this has been discussed at length.

Lmao!

Because Simon decided to assassinate Andrea and big up Fleur. He has an enormous influence on the voting public.

Rubbish.

Andrea got given ballads week after week, people got bored. Fleur is a young woman - women don't get the votes.

Fleur Wouldve had much more chance at winning If it wasn't for the condtant favouritism. There was a big "Anti-Fleur" by the end of it because the favouritism was so obvious - that and her limited vocal talent.
Andrea was derailed by the awful VT's and anti andrea agenda.

Well that is true regarding Fleur, but I really don't think anybody can argue that Fleur wasn't pushed a great deal throughout the show. But look at the voting figures Big Band week, Andrea goes right down when Simon completely unnecessarily attacks the performance (later in the week he apologized). But it would certainly be a coincidence that his votes would slip that week. Simon started gunning for him ever since week 2 really. When Simon doesn't 'endorse' an act it has a certain power in the voting, I'm not sure why.

Andrea's votes fell because people got bored of him. He peaked early and soon people realised he didn't have much else to offer. Fleur became the clear second favourite so there's not much of a discrepancy between DS and the public on that front, but she simply wasn't as popular as Ben was with the voters so never stood a chance. He took it comfortably, just like Matt Cardle did. For me, the biggest discrepancy by far is OTY's popularity on here and lack thereof with the public. I still find that puzzling.

Garbage! Andrea's votes fell because he was made to churn out diva songs, because he was made to look like a muppet on halloween and because he was constantly portrayed as an odd quirky outsider, the other one in his Vt's!
Key point is people didn't get bored they were manipulated into getting bored, big difference!

The diva songs and quirky persona were present long before the live shows even hit, and occurred while he was still very popular. People who are put off by them wouldn't have been interested in him in the first place, so that's clearly not it. Andrea still scored highly in the votes in week 4 so the Halloween fiasco clearly didn't dent his popularity that much at the time, and it was a one-off occurrence too. His votes saw a gradual decline week on week rather than a complete plummet, and there were plenty of comments circulating during the early weeks from ex-fans claiming that they were starting to find him dull. People simply got bored of him.

My point is he was made to look dull, he has shown in numerous interviews he is anything but dull! As for the quirky persona, it was twisted from quirky persona to an outsider always eating with constant reminders no matter where you looked.

I dont think Andreas overall vote declined at all , he has a strong core base, but I feel that Simons constant little digs and criticisms, song choices, the VT's and the silly stories in the press stopped him picking up any of the transfer votes from the acts that left.

He was a clear front runner at the beginning (topped the votes for three weeks). If Simon had decided Ben and Fleur were to be this years 'chosen ones', then Andrea's vote had to be subdued. He still reached week seven before a sing off, and they chose to keep him in the semi final (they didn't go to deadlock) so were happy to let him finish in third place. So I wouldn't say they were anti-Andrea - Simon just didn't want him winning.

Andrea himself was happy to reach third place. For someone from another country it's an amazing achievement.

Not really, I didn't think his personality was portrayed as dull at all on the show. It was what he brought to the show that people lost interest in. Singing every song in the same type of way, over-singing every single time, etc. That was his doing. If he wasn't able to gain support because of a few VTs featuring him eating, which didn't occur all that much, then he really didn't have much hope anyway. Other contestants overcame much worse.

Exactly.

Thats the word im looking for. ..assassinate! !!

Couldn't kill him physically. ...so he decides to kill him with cruel words...right up to the final weekend. .....and wore that slimy smile he has, whilst he was doing it too. ....evil or what,???

As for the boring tag....the diva songs he sang was given to him by the show in conjunction with the crap themes, the acts were forced to sing week in, week out....Andrea was given 'relight my fire...a dance track. .but the 'boring' tag still hung off him....again no thanks to the assassinator. ...it became a chore that has now had its day.....needs to change next year. ..or ratings will plummet even further!!!!!

Simon is extremely clever, he changed that week to Whitney and Elton so Mel and Andrea would fall into his trap, or more likely didn't have much of a say in the song choice anyway. Finishing it off with the 'you're safe after that.' line. With a few exceptions, it's difficult to shake off that bottom two stigma. I still think it's amazing he got third. Third does tend to be the lucky number for kicking off post X Factor careers so on the whole, I think Andrea will do very well out of his X Factor experience.

Not rubbish. Both valid points

Precisely. Even Cheryl said to Mel that he was the same every week - if she had taken this on board and he might have been one of the final two.

Rubbish.

Oh dear, I forgot, it must be down to all that BS about 'manipulation' and 'sabotage' that the Andreas brigade want to believe happened. Yeah right!

Not rubbush, entirely true I'm afraid.