Hardly had the Planet Football conclave assembled in a musty back room yesterday evening when the white smoke billowed from our chimney. Like Julius Francis against Mike Tyson, not a punch was thrown and not an insult hurled - thank you David Kelly for making our Player of the Week deliberations troublefree.

The Tranmere captain led his team to Wembley on Wednesday night, scoring the third goal in a 3-0 win over Bolton in the second leg of their League Cup semifinal, and then came off the bench on Saturday to score the winner away to Fulham to set up an FA Cup quarter-final home tie against Blackburn or Newcastle. Player of the Week? Naturally.

Runners-up: Ian Harte, for proving to Alan Hansen that his right foot works (he scored with it against Aston Villa in the cup yesterday) and (out of sympathy) Wimbledon striker Jon Goodman, who won four caps for the Republic of Ireland under Mick McCarthy but was forced to retire from the game last week because of a knee injury.