HE'S the apprentice who said ‘you’re fired’ to Sir Alan Sugar.

Chigwell entrepreneur Adam Freeman, who runs the loans website www.mrlender.com, dropped out of the hit TV show hours before it started, avoiding the media circus that was about to engulf his fellow contestants.

Each week, Adam will give his verdict on how he thinks each of the candidates have performed.

THE BOYS

BEN CLARKE: Packed his flip-flops and set off for the not-so-sunny north west. He contributed to the task by setting up a presentation with management at the UK's largest pet store - whom Yasmina and Lorraine failed to impress. There was no mention at all of Sandhurst this week - which was surprising.

JAMES MCQUILLAN: The lucky winner of this week's ‘non-participation' award.

PHILLIP TAYLOR: [FIRED] It seemed as though he was slacking in a bid to send project manager Lorraine into the boardroom for battle - a battle which he later found out he would lose. Having Kate on his team distracted him and he seemed to have given up completely, and was more interested in going to the pub. Muttering ‘joke’ when leaving the board room was a bit juvenile but, as Sir Alan put it, “he showed his true colours”.

HOWARD EBISON: He gave an OK presentation with Debra at the pet shop, although Debra was adamant every sale was to be her's. His sales figures would have been higher if he didn’t have her as a sidekick because she dominated the pitching to the leads that she generated.

THE GIRLS

YASMINA SIADATAN: She tried desperately to take over the pitch with the national pet store to try and sell cardboard boxes for cats. I couldn’t figure out if she wanted the glory and sale or just to prevent Lorraine from messing up another presentation.

DEBRA BARR: She showed a lot of strength when doing the sales round with Howard as she completely overpowered him. I almost believed her when she told poor Howard she was ‘working as a team’ – yeah, ‘Team Debra’! She should have been a bit sharper during the sales pitch for the body sleeping bag and come up with a better response to the questions thrown at her.

LORRAINE TIGHE: She did the best she could “PM-ing” the task. It was obvious her team were purposely neglecting the task so she would end up in the boardroom. Her alienation of other candidates is starting to go against her. Her description of their product as a ‘cat playhouse for cats’ was a bit simplistic, and to suggest that one shop would sell 400 a week was just plain ludicrous. Admitting her selling technique was a "bit direct" was an understatement; instead of asking how many they want to order, she should have approached it by firstly asking what sales they think they would achieve. You could nearly see the smoke coming out of her head, slowly - slowly burning.

MONA LEWIS: First time as project manager and she did a great job and showed good, positive, direct and straight forward negotiating techniques. Her management of her team was good and she maintained the highest order book while doing so - so well done Mona! She is the first candidate too really show good business acumen.

KATE WALSH: She was in trouble this week and came surprisingly close to getting fired. Did she play Phillip? She certainly didn’t seem to be on his side, even though he was constantly protecting her in the boardroom. Going by previous tasks, I was surprised that her order book was completely empty.