It's pretty tough to assess at the moment. Maybe knowing the second week's songlist might help. Will the producers save Sharon's acts for a few weeks in a bid to keep Sharon 'on side' so she doesn't 'quit' again?
Depends how you think of it. Sharon gets over £250,000+ for this judging/mentoring gig (what does she fooking do anyway!?) so you can treat all this drama as complete bollocks if you want. She'll advertise and do any wanky thing because she wants the money...and the attention and publicity that goes with it!
Remember that last year, Louis Walsh was odds-on to be the first mentor to have no acts left and the bookies were quoting very poor odds that he'd be doing it in record time as well. Mysteriously The MacDonald Brothers kept surviving week-after-week until the producers couldn't chance them winning the final and they cut them off the show to let them finish fourth which made Louis Walsh last year's biggest loser and first mentor to have no acts left.
Will Alisha or Emily be assigned that role of this year's The MacDonald Brothers? The X Factor always seems to have an act that sticks around regardless of how negative the majority of what the public's opinion is of them but this year's assigned 'bad guy' appears to be Rhydian Roberts.
It is probably just pathetically fake on-screen shenanigans designed to keep
Strictly Come Dancing off the front page/entertainment and showbiz pages/TV pages.
No single act at the moment completely reeks of 'Simon wants them to win and he's rigging the show for them!' unless you believe the 'Simon wants a group to win and even more so because he's their mentor' rumour that means Futureproof or Hope have been assigned this role and that it's only a matter of time.