Nigel Pearson confirmed Duncan Idehen will stay at Bristol City beyond the summer after making his debut in the 3-1 victory over Derby.
The defender, who joined the club on a six-month deal in January following an unsuccessful trial at Birmingham, has impressed during spells in the Under-23s with the young Robins top of their development league.
He was an unused substitute away at Swansea in February and was back on the bench on Monday during the 1-1 draw with Sheffield United. Idehen was handed his moment in the 72nd minute when he came on for Ayman Benarous seven minutes before Timm Klose's first City goal put the game to bed.
When asked on whether Idehen will stay beyond the season, Pearson said: "We'll be keeping him. He's got physical attributes which are really, really important and we've not seen his passing range today but he has a good range of passing.
"He was a bit nervous to start with but he is naturally a very good defender, he's a good destructive player and he had very simple instructions when he went on and that is to try and be a difficult opponent.
"He was very excited about being on the bench and to make his debut for a lad who has come on quite a bit - yea good for him."
It was a game of milestones at Pride Park with Andi Weimann scoring his 20th goal of the season, Klose heading in his first and City beating last season's points tally.
Weimann raced through on goal in the 10th minute before confidently burying the ball past Ryan Allsop and Pearson was delighted for the Austrian to add to his already career-best tally.
He said: "It's incredible really and a testament to his professionalism, his desire and his work ethic is just incredible so I'm really pleased for him. Especially off the back of last season where he spent a long time injured.
"To have a season like this on his return from injury is - and a difficult season too at times - we've not always got the results that our performances have warranted. We've been a bit inconsistent as a team so for us to have one player on 20 goals, another (Chris Martin) on 10 and Antoine on seven, we've made progress.
"It feels like it's a long season for us. We're thankful that we've beaten last season's points total. Our youngsters played a very positive role again today.
"It is about results but there is a bigger picture for us and that is that we are starting to produce some really good young players."
Semenyo doubled City's lead on 38 minutes when he took advantage of Richard Stearman's error at the back to score his first goal in 10 matches.
Derby gave themselves a fighting chance when Craig Forsyth headed in on the hour mark before Klose's scored City's third with 10 minutes left to play.
"I thought we were excellent in the first half and created chances. They had a couple of good chances too but I thought even in the second half we carved out some really good chances and could have made life easier for ourselves but a 3-1 away win is still a very good result."
SIGN UP: For our daily Robins newsletter, bringing you the latest from Ashton Gate
