Luke O'Brien hopes Exeter City will provide him with the perfect platform to get his career back on track, after he finally completed his move to the club yesterday.

The 23-year-old will stay at St James' Park for the rest of the season and will wear the number 11 shirt vacated on Monday by Scott Golbourne, who signed for Barnsley for an undisclosed fee.

City have not paid a transfer fee for O'Brien, but have taken over his contract and, with first-team opportunities hard to come by at Valley Parade, the Yorkshireman is determined to make the most of his chance in Devon.

"I've been at Bradford City for 15 years and I think players get to a stage in their career where they need a fresh start and a fresh challenge," he said. "I hadn't been playing for Bradford and the gaffer had me in and basically said I wasn't in his plans, and I could look elsewhere.

"Luckily, Exeter were interested and I have a few friends that said it was a lovely place and, with them being in League One as well, there were a few reasons to come to the club.

"I have been used to League Two football, but I have noticed how much sharper it is here. It is a different standard at the end of the day, and I know they like to get the ball down and play, so it's nice to come to a club that get the ball down and play."

O'Brien has been at Bradford since the age of eight, when he enrolled with the West Yorkshire club's Centre of Excellence. After making his first-team debut in 2007, he went on to make over 150 appearances and soon became a favourite with the Valley Parade faithful.

"It has been a long time and it was hard saying goodbye yesterday," O'Brien said. "It has been hard for the fans as well, they have always stuck by me and, maybe because I was a home-grown player, they liked me.

"It was hard to leave, but they have more or less wished me good luck. I think they understood that I wasn't playing at Bradford and I needed to get out and play somewhere."

However, since winning the club's player of the year award in 2009, O'Brien has found himself frozen out of the first-team picture and, with a fiancée and an 11-month-old daughter to support, O'Brien was keen to move on in search of first-team football.

"The distance was a major factor and I am a family man," O'Brien said. "It is going to be a big change in my life, but I have to do it for me and my family because, in five or ten years' time, I may look back and wonder what may have happened, you just don't know.

"Everyone knows that football is a short career, I drove down last night and it took just over four hours, but my family are only a phone call away. It is going to be hard, but, at the end of the day, it's the best move for my career.

"If it all goes right and I get a few games under my belt in League One and do myself justice, then hopefully I will sit down with [Exeter manager] Paul Tisdale and he may offer me a longer contract. We will just have to wait and see."

The Grecians are understood to have first held talks with O'Brien before their npower League One away game at Oldham Athletic two Saturdays ago, but, due to their financial position, they were unable to go through with a deal. However, the undisclosed-fee sale of Golbourne to Barnsley helped free to up some funds.

O'Brien's place in the first team is by no means guaranteed, with Billy Jones back from injury and in contention to start Saturday's trip to Bournemouth.

"I had no idea about Scott moving on until yesterday when I was driving down, and it has worked in my favour," O'Brien said. "But I'm not thinking that I'm going straight into the team. Billy is here and he's a very good left-back who I've played against.

"In all honesty, I don't think I will be playing this weekend because I've hardly played and my last full game was in November, so it has been a while. But I'm relishing the challenge of being here."

O'Brien's arrival was not the only piece of transfer business at St James' Park yesterday, with Chris Shephard leaving the club to join Blue Square Bet Premier strugglers Bath City on a month's loan.