SPOILER ALERT: Matt Terry wins The X Factor 2016, Saara Aalto is runner-up

Here’s the moment @MattTerry93 won The #XFactor, and here are his winner’s single details: https://t.co/Zp07ZVJnYV pic.twitter.com/KeVtGxCWX0

— Official Charts (@officialcharts) December 11, 2016

• Matt Terry is the winner of X Factor 2016 – and the vote breakdown shows he’d been the clear winner from the start
• Saara Aalto is runner-up
• Kylie Minogue, Little Mix and Madness all performed at the live final at Wembley Arena
• Matt’s debut single is called When Christmas Comes Around and has been written by Ed Sheeran

Matt’s a deserving winner

Our hearts might have said Saara Aalto, but our heads said Matt Terry was always going to win X Factor. It was clear from his first audition that he had it all – looks, charm AND talent. He’d been the favourite through most of the competition and, after a slightly lack-lustre few weeks, he really pulled it out of the bag for the final, singing a series of totes emoshe songs (One Day I’ll Fly Away was a highlight) and doing lots of smouldering looks to camera.

Yes, it’s clear from all the flatteringly filtered selfies on Matt’s social media feeds that he knows where his bread is buttered – teenaged girls (and probably quite a few women of a certain age…) adore him. And ultimately, they’re the ones who vote.

When you listen to the radio it feels like nobody has written any Christmas songs since approx 1987, but now we have a new contender for festive omnipresence. Matt’s winner’s single is called When Christmas Comes Around, which sounds like a crappy made for TV Christmas film starring Christina Applegate and Mark Ruffalo that we’d be all over on a hungover Sunday afternoon, but it isn’t, it’s a slightly twee song co-written by Ed Sheeran that will raise money for some worthy charities, and it’ll probably be huge. Why has it taken X Factor this long to realise this is a better formula than a Biffy Clyro cover?

Yesssss! We live for the voting stats

Every year, the UK broadcaster, ITV release the weekly breakdown of votes, just to shut up all the people who like to shriek “it’s a fix! Fix Factor, amirite?” at their tellies. And just to satisfy those of us with slightly geek tendencies.

Our main findings from this year’s results:

• Fun as they were, 5 After Midnight had no chance of winning – they only got 11.1% of the final vote last night (versus Matt’s 48.5% and Saara’s 40.4%).
• Overall, Matt was the most popular from the start
• Saara’s popularity shot up dramatically in week 3 (when she sang Bjork’s It’s Oh So Quiet), then jumped around quite erratically, until she became super-popular in the last couple of weeks
• Emily Middlemas was consistently popular – but even her lame boyfriend Ryan Lawrie had a few decent weeks
• As suspected, both Relley C and Gifty Louise were kind of screwed over by Four of Diamonds/the judges.
• Honey G was only ever a mediocre amount of popular. She was never, ever going to win. Phew.

You can pore over the full breakdown here.

Saara Aalto was the perfect runner-up

Saara Aalto has had the most unlikely X Factor journey. She wasn’t at all popular until at least halfway through the live shows, when she sung Bjork and won the British public over with her quirkiness. Since then, she hasn’t had a duff week, and we’re so glad she was in the grand final, rather than 5 After Midnight, Emily Middlemas or, god forbid, Honey G. Even though she didn’t win, it was still a great Finnish. SORRY.

Saara took Matt’s victory in her stride too – she was still all smiles, and you could tell she just couldn’t believe her luck that she’d made it so far. We’d love to see her now transform into a Finnish Kylie. She has masses of camp appeal, and with the right songwriters, could become a proper pop diva. Hopefully Ms Minogue herself imparted a few words of advice after opening the show tonight.