There are a few rules that one should adhere to when reaching the X Factor live finals – one is to invent as many sob stories about yourself as possible, and the other is to avoid rollerskates, as Alisha Bennett found out on Saturday.

Although Alisha Bennett’s befuddling stage routine to her X Factor rendition of Young Hearts Run Free – plus her wonky vocals – contributed to her downfall, she still has plenty to be proud about. For starters, Alisha Bennett will go down in history as the only X Factor contestant who made Sharon Osbourne launch into a weird tear-flecked defence of people who have to rollerskate to make a living – and if that’s not enough, Alisha Bennett has never to our knowledge thrown a schoolgirl against a brick wall by her hair, which at least sets her apart from 50% of Sharon Osbourne’s other X Factor flock. We’ll miss Alisha Bennett, that’s for sure, or at least – ooh – a day or so.

It’d be longer but we’re still trying to work out who’ll win X Factor this year. So here are today’s X Factor betting odds for Hope, Same Difference and Leon Jackson, with help from Paddy Power…

Hope – Well, ain’t this quite the turnaround – Hope, the girlgroup lauded to win X Factor at the start of the competition, are now rank outsiders. But why? Perhaps it’s because Hope aren’t actually a girlgroup – anyone watching Hope’s performance of Gimme Gimme Gimme on Saturday will have noticed that only one of them is allowed to sing, only one of them is allowed to talk and all the others may as well be kebab-meat kestrel sculptures for all the good they actually sodding do. As it happens, Hope’s X Factor routine wasn’t especially awful – there was a clever little Madonna mash-up bit plus the whole thing doubled up as a fun ‘count the cameltoes’ side-game – but with two X Factor sing-offs under their belt, Hope are going to need to change strategy sharpish. This either means they all share the vocals more equally in the future or they start writhing about like jelly-spined prostitutes high on catnip again. We know which one we’d prefer. Current X Factor betting odds – 12/1

Same Difference – Saturday was the X Factor Disco Night, but if you didn’t know that and only saw Same Difference’s performance of Blame It On The Boogie you may have thought that you were watching the X Factor 1983 Lithuanian Eurovision Song Contest Qualifying Round Night. Pretty much everything about it was awful, from the golden tracksuits to the horrifying attempts at raunch to the alarming realisation that Same Difference are somehow even more creepy when they’re singing to people they’re not directly related to. It says a lot about Same Difference’s X Factor performance that it was easily their most mature song to date, and it was written by perennial eerie boychild Michael Jackson when he was 20. Since logic dictates that Same Difference narrowly avoided the sing-off on Saturday, we’d imagine that they’ll be back doing what they do best next week – churning out the theme-tune to Dora The Explorer dressed up as bumblebees. Current X Factor betting odds – 10/1

Leon Jackson - You may know Leon Jackson as X Factor‘s resident red-eyed wuss, but a quiet transformation has been taking place over the weeks. You see, despite being very obviously terrible, Leon Jackson has gone seven weeks without facing X Factor elimination, which has built his confidence up somewhat – and now traces of Leon’s real personality are coming out. It’s just a shame that Leon’s real personality seems to be fairly bastard-heavy. Even though all he did on Saturday’s X Factor was sing Relight My Fire with his knees constantly bent like he’d just shat himself while wearing a sparkly Scottish flag on his T-shirt – in itself an act of regional desperation so nauseating that it literally made us chew our own ankles off – Leon started hoofing about in front of the X Factor judges like some sort of obnoxious Little Lord Fauntleroy who’d just won the pools. In truth, though, we didn’t hate Leon’s routine – we just can’t bring ourselves to forge an opinion about it. Current X Factor betting odds – 10/1

Tomorrow – X Factor betting odds for Beverley Trottman, Niki Evans and Rhydian Roberts. But if that’s too long to wait – or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with – head right over to the Paddy Power X Factor betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.

It was never going to be a surprise when Andy Williams – the dim-looking nondescript Welsh boy who couldn’t carry a tune in a tune-sized rucksack – was knocked out of X Factor, which is why we’re not exactly surprised right now.

Because, in an X Factor career so dull that we half-expected his ‘best bits’ package to be one millisecond long, Andy Williams’ performance of Chasing Cars on Saturday stood out as especially weak. Out of time, out of tune, dead-eyed and sung with a face that looked like it was being operated by the animatronic team from Jurassic Park, it seemed a lot like Andy Williams was just forming noises with his mouth without understanding that he was saying actual words. Andy’s X Factor elimination seemed more like a mercy killing, especially since his T-shirt had the word ‘ROCK’ embroidered on it. We’re guessing Primark was out of ‘Insipid’ shirts.

But now Andy Williams has been put out of his misery, who’s going to win X Factor? Here are the X Factor betting odds to win for Alisha Bennett and Beverley Trottman, with help from Paddy Power…

Alisha Bennett – What we like best about Alisha Bennett is the incredibly low standard she sets for herself – case in point, on Saturday’s X Factor Alisha was over the moon simply because she wasn’t utterly dreadful for once. That’s not to say that Alisha was good – that’s too big a step – but her rendition of Girl Put Your Records On was sort of OK in a pedestrian way, like a cheese sandwich or a plastic cup of warm water. Still, though, Alisha lives to sing another round, and we’re pinning that mostly on the way she burst into tears as soon as it was over. Maybe Alisha wept because girls putting records on has a deep emotional resonance with her, or maybe it was the way someone made her wear a sparkly beret and a weightlifting belt for the performance, but she’s through to next week’s X Factor because of it, and that’s all the opinion we can muster on the matter. Current X Factor betting odds – 25/1

Beverley Trottman - We knew it. It’s clear to the whole wide world that Beverley Trottman has a fine set of pipes on her, but she’s as likely to win X Factor as Simon Cowell is of ever working out that the top half of his shirts have buttons. On Saturday’s X Factor our point was proved when Beverley found herself in the final two sing-off. Although her performance was technically very good, it happened to be to You’re Beautiful – and so strong are the negative implications of singing a James Blunt song that she may as well have picked a song called I’ll Stomp On All Your Pets If You Vote For Me. Also, if the rest of the X Factor audience is like us, the only way Beverley Trottman would have got votes after Saturday’s wince-inducing tearful “Why didn’t mummy want me?” VT package is if there was a voting option to duck her like a witch. Current X Factor betting odds – 14/1

Tomorrow – the X Factor betting odds for Leon Jackson, Same Difference and Hope. But if that’s too long to wait – or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with – head right over to the Paddy Power X Factor betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.

So Simon Cowell’s big X Factor ruse of putting together manufactured groups and telling the world how they’ll probably win X Factor has backfired – on Saturday his boyband Futureproof were eliminated from the show.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, Simon Cowell had to choose whether to eliminate Futureproof or his girlband Hope, because they were both placed in X Factor‘s bottom two. We’ll deal with Hope in the days to come, but nobody can really be surprised that Futureproof were knocked out of X Factor – their dull, weedy rendition of Can’t Take My Eyes Off You was hopelessly overpowered by the live band accompanying them and their much-discussed dance routine was a joke. But at least now they’re out of X Factor, Futureproof can return to what they look like they do best – hanging out on the top deck of buses throwing open cans of cider at terrified pensioners.

But now that Futureproof are no longer a part of X Factor, who’s going to win? Here’s the first part of this week’s X Factor betting odds – for Alisha Bennett, Andy Williams and Same Difference – with help as ever from Paddy Power…

Alisha Bennett - Thanks to young Emily Nakanda coming over all Macho Man Randy Savage on the internet and getting kicked off X Factor, Alisha Bennett finds herself as the only 14-24 girl left on the show, and since she was in X Factor‘s final two for the first two weeks running, the pressure on her to sing Valerie well enough to stay on the show must have been huge. You suspect that if he was in the same position, Leon may well have actually soiled himself onstage. And yet Alisha did a surprisingly decent job of it, looking like a popstar for the first time and sailing through the elimination process unharmed. We’re pleased for Alisha – not because we want her to do well but because it means that Alisha’s X Factor VT next week won’t just feature her crying a lot because nobody likes her. The following week once she’s been in the bottom two again, sure, but let’s just be thankful for next week’s breather. Current X Factor betting odds – 33/1

Andy Williams – Once again, we’re stunned that Andy Williams wasn’t even in the X Factor bottom two on Saturday, because his rendition of This Guy’s In Love With You tanked so badly we can hardly describe it. Poor old Andy – a man so dim-looking that we wouldn’t be surprised if McDonalds started writing ‘Contents Hot’ on their drinks just to stop him dipping his penis into cups of coffee all the time – started performing the song alone at a table for one, possibly because it didn’t take long for the girl to work out that this guy’s probably only in love with himself. Also, Andy’s X Factor performance taught us that whenever he’s backed by a live 27-piece orchestra, whatever he sings will sound like the insane mutterings of a drunkard at 4am. Please just get rid of him next week. Current X Factor betting odds – 25/1

Same Difference – The X Factor Big Band night is a chance for the performers to pay homage to some of the most effortlessly cool songs from a time when music was more pure, so that’s why on Saturday Same Difference decided to sing that old standard from Frank Sinatra‘s seminal In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning album, Reach For The Stars by S Club 7. And, if the song had been performed by a buck-toothed six year old girl in pigtails, chances are it would have been the most adorable spectacle of the night. But since it was actually performed by two slightly incesty adult siblings who model themselves on Ned Flanders, the result was so creepy that we found ourselves clawing at our own skin by the second verse. The only thing we can attribute to Same Difference scraping through the X Factor elimination process was because of their sobbing “I’m a victim of bullying” VT package, despite the fact that even the most pitiful victim of bullying could probably find something to bully Same Difference about. Current X Factor betting odds – 14/1

Tomorrow – the X Factor betting odds for Beverley Trottman, Leon Jackson and Hope. But if that’s too long to wait – or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with – head right over to the Paddy Power X Factor betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.