Luke O’Brien heads to the west country today as he prepares to sever a 15-year tie with City by joining Exeter.

The League One side are ready to take over the left back’s contract, which is due to run out at the end of the season.

City’s former player of the year has been out of favour under Phil Parkinson and will meet the Grecians for talks with his manager’s blessing.

Parkinson said: “We’ve had a couple of chats and OB feels he needs a fresh challenge in his career. I agree with him. He’s been here a long time but he needs to get himself going again for various reasons.

“On the other side of it, we’re bringing in players and the chairmen obviously want me to redress the balance.

“We haven’t had loads of calls for players out of the squad but OB’s one of them and we’ve given him the opportunity.”

The Halifax-born 23-year-old has been connected with City since he was eight when he joined the school of excellence.

O’Brien has made 149 appearances since Stuart McCall handed him a debut in the JPT at Doncaster in 2007 and won the coveted player of the year title two years later. But he faded out of the picture towards the end of last season when Peter Jackson preferred to use Robbie Threlfall. And his fortunes have not changed since Parkinson came in.

O’Brien has not started a game since the 3-2 home defeat to Rotherham in November. His last outing was for five minutes from the bench at Southend.

Parkinson added: “OB’s a good lad but we’ve had Marcel (Seip) playing at left back lately and he’s done well. Obviously we’ve got Robbie who can do that job too.

“As much as OB is a good player to have around, when the call came in from Exeter after the conversations we had, we’ve got to do the right thing for him too.”

Neither O’Brien nor Threlfall were in the squad for Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Burton, with Parkinson admitting the hosts blew the chance to put the result to bed.

“We got in really good positions to kill the game off and we didn’t do that. The final ball is the important one and we should have done better.

“We had two of the back four who had hardly played all season and they put in very good performances. We’d hardly been threatened and it’s two points dropped.

“That goal Burton scored should have been a consolation. It should have been all over.”