'Underwhelming!' Strictly's Matt Goss and Nadiya Bychkova narrowly avoid elimination

express.co.uk:

Strictly's Matt Goss and Nadiya Bychkova were first dogged by persistent feud rumours, and then got a verbal lashing from the judges this evening, who decided that their performance was lacking.The pair narrowly scraped through after being placed in the bottom two along with Kaye Adams and Kai Widdrington.Some fans shared on Twitter that they hadn't expected Kai to be eliminated so early on in the competition, especially after he reached the final in 2021.In fact, Kai was hotly tipped to win along with his partner AJ Odudu, until she was forced to pull out at the last minute owing to an ankle injury.For that reason, when both couples ended up in a tense dance-off on this evening's results show, Matt and Nadiya could have been forgiven for fearing the worst.Judge Craig Revel Horwood didn't spare their blushes when he delivered harsh criticism for the pair."Underdog and underwhelming, I'm afraid!" he announced before they even knew they were headed for the bottom two.Host Claudia Winkleman was a little more sympathetic, asking sentimentally: "Why don't we keep everyone and at the end, everyone gets a Glitterball [Trophy]?!"Both Kai and Kaye, and Matt and Nadiya received identical results on the scoreboard last night, but all of the judges, except for Shirley Ballas, voted to keep the latter couple in, sealing their fate.Veteran dancer Anton du Beke empathised: "I know exactly how they feel - I've been in that position many times myself."Yet Shirley insisted that she would have saved Kaye and Kai, telling the world she believed they had the edge on "quality".Nadiya is now in the difficult position of being forced to watch her real-life romantic partner Kai eliminated from the show, while she has another chance next week.She.