Mick McCarthy has praised Kevin Bru for getting involved in the ugly side of the game, following Tuesday’s morale-boosting league win over Sheffield Wednesday.

The Paris-born midfielder, Town supporters’ player of the month for January, helped tilt the game in the hosts’ favour against the Owls, the 57th-minute substitute needing just ten minutes to set up Luke Chambers for the Blues’ winner.

While his silky style has turned the 26-year-old into a fans’ favourite, McCarthy is equally delighted that his hidden gem from Levski Sofia has adapted to the physical side of the second tier.

“He’s quite slight, but he puts his foot in and works hard. I think he picked up the pace of the Championship pretty quick,” said McCarthy.

“I’m not so sure he knew the rules at Derby early on because he was saying ‘gaffer, I’ve got to come off’ and I said ‘I’ve made all three substitutions you plonker!’ I was going ‘are the rules different in France?!’

“He kept going that day and I admired him and respected him for that because he was goosed. I thought ‘fair play to you Kev’.

“I think the fans have taken to him. I think they’re shouting Bru rather than boo!”

Bru learned his trade at the famed INF Clairefontaine Academy in France, a set-up which discovered such stars as Nicolas Anelka, Louis Saha and William Gallas.

After a nomadic career in the French second division and in Bulgaria, the Mauritian international was recommended to Town in the summer by former Norwich striker Antoine Sibierski.

“If I could take two players in, for nothing, every pre-season and one of them comes off then I’d take that every time. Balint (Bajner) didn’t work out, but Bru certainly has.

“He was at Clairefontaine, but not everybody who starts at academies like that makes it because you need to have more than technical ability – and he has.”