Alan Sugar defends 'Apprentice' flops

Lord Alan Sugar has defended the Apprentice candidates who flop during the show's tasks.

Sugar spoke on This Morning about some of the classic errors that the hopefuls make, but argued that the same thing would happen to the world's best businessmen if they were put under the same pressure.

"I know what it looks like, but can I just say in defence of these people, you get these people and you wake them up at six in the morning, and you thrust a set of rules upon them, you shove them out and you put a pressure on them to actually perform," he said.

"Now I've often said that if I got my good friend Phillip Green and Richard Branson and Bill Gates and stuck them together at six in the morning and said 'Right, out! You're going to make some bread and take it down to the market place and start selling it', they would be out of their comfort zone. And they [the contestants] are completely out of their comfort zone."

The Apprentice continues on Wednesday at 9pm on BBC One.