A Load Of Old Baloney

Oct 26, 2012 by Rob

This may have passed you by this week but apparently Simon Cowell wants Shaky Baloney off his show post-haste. Quick, where’s oddschecker? Baloney must be a goner now.

We particularly enjoyed this quote in the Mirror story, from a ‘source’: ‘Chris winning or even getting further into the competition is a disaster for Cowell’.

If you delved into the archives this exact quote has probably been used before by the X Factor publicity machine when churning out the same sort of story in previous years – simply replace ‘Chris’ with ‘Chico’ or ‘Jedward’ or ‘Wagner’ or ‘Johnny Robinson’ or…

Translated, this story is effectively a rallying call for Baloney supporters to keep voting for their man. TPTB have probably decided the media coverage Chris’s continued presence on the show will create is worth extending the saga.

We again suggested laying Chris for bottom 2 last week in light of the Daily Star voting leak. We would advise the same again this week. We get the impression voting figures are at an all time low in this series which is helping Chris maintain his position clear of the drop zone as he continues to coalesce all the middle-aged Joe Longthorne fans out there.

Chris’s continued presence on the show has left those who took our advice and dutched Melanie and Kye for Top Over with something of a dilemma. Kye should get a healthy bottom 2 bounce this week, but we don’t expect Chris to figure in the bottom 2 on Sunday either.

Can Kye ultimately outlast Chris? It will probably come down to the wire. One thing we do know is as soon as Chris lands in the bottom 2, he is out of there whereas Kye has a slightly better chance of being saved when he next drops into sing-off territory. You can still cover on Chris at 5-4 to be Top Over – you could get 15-8 last weekend.

Whether you wish to take 5-4 comes down to your liability and if you prefer to adopt a safety-first approach with your trading. We generally do which is why we took some of the 15-8. During an X Factor series, much like any tv betting event, you always need to accept taking a few hits along the way. The key thing is, making sure they are few and far between, not too damaging, and that you end up in front at series-end.

Looking ahead to tomorrow night one of the biggest questions is whether Rylan can avoid the bottom 2 for the third consecutive week. We were left uncertain about his survival chances last week after his unconvincing performance and production, and rather lukewarm comments from the judges. We reckon the Robbie Williams Tweet was probably a masterstroke in pushing up his vote.

The expendable acts are becoming less which certainly exerts more pressure on Rylan, but we would remain cautious about backing him for elimination, or bottom 2, until seeing his treatment tomorrow night.

District 3 really bounced back last Saturday and could continue with that momentum, so again we advise a watching brief with them. If we are going to delve into the bottom 2 market pre-show, we would rather have speculative punts on Jade at 11-4 with Paddy Power and Union J at a widely-available 11-2.

Jade is not resonating with the audience in our view and probably only survived by the skin of her teeth last week courtesy of the sore throat sympathy – we will also be having an investment on Jade to be next eliminated at 8-1 with William Hill.

Union J’s Achilles’ heel is the way they have been pigeon-holed as a copy of One Direction. They were stating trying to move away from this with their next song which could be the ideal situation for a poor song choice and a cunning de-ramp.

Boyband support can often prove incredibly thin so one false move and you sense they will be extremely vulnerable. You also get the impression TPTB’s only interest in the boybands is keeping the battle going for a while longer.

A bottom 2 save for Union J would be the perfect narrative moving forward, and for some pep talk along the lines of, ‘It’s 1-1 now guys. You’ve both been down on the canvas once. This is a fight to the death. You really need to come out and impress,’ from Louis the following week.

We will again be keeping a close eye on Jahmene. We seem to be saying this every week but we are convinced a surprise bottom 2 appearance for him is just around the corner.

As always we will be back on Sunday in an attempt to unravel Saturday night’s show and point you in the direction of the wisest trades. As always, we encourage you to join the debate and add your thoughts below.
Rob Furber