STEWART JOINS BIRMINGHAM FOR £500K

BIRMINGHAM CITY have confirmed the £500,000 capture of Dundee striker Greg Stewart on a threeyear deal. The on-off move was confirmed by the English Championship club on their website following reports the 26-year-old had rejected the terms on offer. Blues boss Gary Rowett’s second signing of the summer, Stewart is poised to go straight into the Birmingham squad to face Leeds United at Elland Road today. The striker was entering the final year of his contract and his departure comes just a fortnight after Kane Hemmings, last season’s top scorer, quit for Oxford after they triggered his £250,000 release clause. Stewart (right) played 84 times for Dundee, scoring 32 goals, and earned nominations for the PFA Scotland Player of the Year shortlist on two occasions. This season, he had already claimed six goals in three games and his departure is a sore one for Dark Blues fans ahead of today’s visit of Rangers, leaving the goalscoring onus on Rory Loy and new signing Faissal El Bakhtaoui. Meanwhile, Mark O’Hara has thanked Dundee boss Paul Hartley for handing him the No 10 role — and insists that being denied a midfield role in the past has hindered his career. The 20-year-old, who joined from Kilmarnock during the summer, turned in a dazzling performance in last weekend’s 3-1 win away at Ross County. And he reckons being used as a makeshift defender at Rugby Park had a negative impact on his game. Thanking Hartley for showing faith in him as he prepares to do battle with the likes of Joey Barton and Niko Kranjcar, O’Hara said: ‘It’s not been ideal not having a set position. It has been detrimental if I’m being honest. ‘It has probably hindered me from progressing my career. In the past, I’ve been helping do a job for the team and not focusing on my own position. ‘But the manager here has obviously shown faith and I was delighted with my performance at County. ‘Hopefully, I’ll repay him with good performances. ‘That was a more advanced midfield position than I’d been in before. But I feel my strongest position is midfield. ‘I was surprised to play that further forward in the No 10 role. It’s usually for smaller, tricky guys, but I’m more about bombing on! ‘I spoke to the manager a couple of weeks ago and he said he wants me to play in midfield, and maybe even look at me in the more advanced role. ‘We worked on it in training, he put me in there and it worked. ‘That was one of the reasons I wanted to come here in the first place. I didn’t want to be a bit-part player filling in for others.’ O’Hara has no fears about going head-to-head with Mark Warburton’s men this lunchtime. ‘I’m not fazed by Joey Barton or Kranjcar,’ he said. ‘I think you can take confidence from what Hamilton Accies did at Ibrox last weekend.’