Robbie Huge Value To Top Leaderboard
The last-up-on-the-night pimping of Jason last Saturday cost us on the Top Scorer market. We thought Holly’s inspired American Smooth with Artem was easily worth the same points tally, if not higher, as it was an under-stated triumph and a thing of beauty:
What we see with Strictly is a degree of scripting. Jason was lined up as the star of the night – not for the first time – and the judges were eager to rave about his performance despite him making mistakes, Alesha pulling out her 10 paddle was frankly laughable.
Them’s the breaks sometimes so on to this week, and guess what? Yep, we’re eager to oppose Jason on the Top Scorer market again. Evens is a silly price on Jason when there are at least 4 contestants capable of knocking him off top spot on the leaderboard, and there must be a good chance at least one of them will get the same treatment he received last Saturday, and be last up on the night, ahead of a chart-topping performance.
Also, Jason has the difficult-to-score-highly-in rumba. He will no doubt do a highly competent job but it will likely be a routine to receive 8s and 9s in our view. And he may well be disadvantaged by an early slot on the show.
Harry has a samba, and while Aliona choreographed a brilliant samba last year with Matt Baker, Matt was exceptional at it, and the signs are not great that Harry is going to excel. It’s a routine that is very easy to lose timing with, so as second favourite in this market at 7-2 Harry doesn’t really appeal at the odds either.
Chelsee is doing a Charleston which should suit her frame perfectly. The worry with Chelsee is she has been ill this week and again had little time to rehearse because of her Waterloo Road filming schedule. But after last week’s wardrobe malfunction, and tears, it is easy to see the judges raving about her regardless of how well she dances, and giving her some more confidence-boosting, inflated scores.
Holly is doing the jive which is another toughy to pull off well but she has taken to it really well by all accounts and has been Tweeting very positively about it, which is more than you can say for most of her previous dances.
Robbie is doing the waltz which should suit him really well, and could potentially be his highest scoring dance of the series. The worry with Robbie is, whether the judges underscore him because they have pigeon-holed him as someone who is slightly behind the front runners. He has looked very good in training this week, and if scored fairly it looks a 9s dance to us, minimum.
So we advise backing Chelsea and Holly, both at 8-1 with Ladbrokes, and in the hope they score Robbie fairly, we suggest tucking into the massive-looking 25-1 on him topping the leaderboard with Boylesports.
One imponderable this week is how guest judge, Jennifer Grey – sitting in for Len – will score. As a contestant, and winner of America’s Dancing With The Stars, you might expect her to be generous, at least with her comments, though it is unlikely she’ll be handing out 10s willy-nilly the way Alesha has this series, as that would make her look unprofessional as a judge.
Given the fact all the front-runners have the potential to fall short of their best this week, we reckon it is worth backing Under 37 on Ladbrokes’ Highest Score market at 5-2, and 0-2 Tens also with Ladbrokes at 6-4.
This week’s elimination could get interesting. Audley is dancing the VW which he is capable of dancing very well. With Lulu dancing a demanding-looking tango, Alex looking all at sea in training doing the QS, and Russell dancing the paso, Audley could force his way up the leaderboard. He was bottom 2 last Saturday which should give him a bit of a boost too so Lulu looks definite value to exit at a widely-available 3-1.
Rob Furber