O'KEEFE: ALL EYES ON WEDNESDAY

Midfielder looks towards a strong performance at Hillsborough

took the positives from his Bluebirds debut and challenged himself and his teammates to reproduce those qualities in next weekend’s Sky Bet Championship trip to Sheffield Wednesday.Stuart O’KeefeNew Cardiff City midfielder

. “I would have liked to have come into the team and do well to make a good first impression, but unfortunately that didn’t happen in terms of the result. Still, it’s been a good week, and I’ve enjoyed my time here so far; it was good for me to get out onto the pitch, but hopefully we can start turning these results around soon. I’m confident that will happen.exclusively to Cardiff City Player“It was obviously a disappointing result [against Derby],” Stuart -

“Derby are fighting for the title, so we knew they were going to come here and have their good spells, but overall I think we limited them in terms of chances. I think they only forced our keeper into making one save other than the penalty, so from that side of things I thought it was quite positive.

“I don’t think they were too much better than us, but the goals just happened at such bad times, and they were poor goals to concede as well. There are positives to take, but it was a negative result. We’ll go again next week; Sheffield Wednesday will provide a tough game, but we’ll work hard and prepare properly in the week and go there and see what we can do.

“I think we had a good shape, and I thought me and Gunnar [Aron Gunnarsson] were compact in the middle. They didn’t really break us down or open us up much at all. With Morrison and Connolly behind us, I thought that side of it was fine, but we could have done more in the attacking third. Maybe I could have put a few more balls into the box to create some more chances, but it was a good platform which we can work on in the week and go from there.

“Gunnar and I are similar types of players, in that we’re hard to break down; we’re competitive and we like to pass the ball as well. With us in there, and Whitts [Peter Whittingham] in front of us to feed, it’s hard work for the opposition to go through the middle - and I don’t think they did at all on Saturday. If we can work on that midfield base then we’ll be fine.”

It’s been a busy week for Stuart, who went straight into Russell Slade’s starting eleven just a few days after completing his switch from Crystal Palace. But as the midfielder continued, it’s a new challenge that he’s relishing.

“I came up to Cardiff earlier in the week for a medical and that was all passed,” he said. “Then I was waiting for some paperwork to get through, which took longer than expected, but it got there in the end.

"For that reason I only trained on Thursday and Friday, and obviously went straight in for the match on Saturday, having not played for a month before that. It’s been a busy time, but I’m ready to give my all to Cardiff now and I hope we can finish in a much stronger way.

“My last game was Dover Athletic in the FA Cup with Palace, so it was good to get that rustiness and lack of sharpness out of my legs. I got seventy-five minutes under my belt in a good, competitive Championship game, so I’m ready to kick on now.