With all our thoughts now turning towards the QPR game this week, it was important we got a confidence-boosting result at Cardiff after our humiliation by Derby.

It’s been a week of hard lessons for Palace; paramount of which being that Edgar Davids is not a left-back.

During Saturday’s defeat his lack of pace and surprisingly, for a man of his age, positioning was exposed time-and-time-again.

It’s not Davids’ fault though, he is and always has been a defensive midfield player - and an exceptional one at that - and it’s bemusing that Burley prefers him in that position to Julian Bennett who is experienced in this league.

Fortunately, injuries forced his hand and Davids was moved into midfield during the Cardiff game and just oozed class.

His passing is sublime and as an added bonus he can provide the strength and tough-tackling that we’ve been missing thus far.

But, given his stature and the high-profile nature of his arrival, it is important that when Davids plays he is fully utilised in a position where he is comfortable and can exert his influence on the game.

He is our marquee player and how he performs is a reflection on the club.

Another important thing to take from this week is that the Championship is a tough enough league without losing players to moments of ill-discipline.

Young James Vaughan was the latest to see red and although their was nothing malicious in his challenge, in fact he was showing incredible work-rate and effort, his tackle was rash and didn’t need to be made.

Now we go into two immensely important local derbies without our top scorer.

The result and strong performance on Tuesday should go some way to banishing the memories of Saturday and prove to the players they can compete with the top teams in this league.

As good as Cardiff are though, Neil Warnock’s QPR will provide the sternest test so far.

It’s going to be an interesting day away from the game with so many former Eagles’ in the opposition ranks but it will be a fine opportunity for us to show our appreciation to Shaun Derry and Clint Hill who performed so heroically last season.

As for Warnock, I’m still undecided as to how I feel about him, all I know is that he’ll have his side well and truly up for this match and we’ll have to be at our best to match them.