Bristol City coach gives his verdict on Stefan Bajic and Tommy Conway

Bristol City U21s boss Ali Hines is a happy man. The former goalkeeper coach was rightfully beaming after the latest Young Robins win, in a Severnside Derby at the High Performance Centre on Tuesday.

The Failand-based Bristol City academy are reflecting on some of the best times currently: a fifth win in six in the Professional Development League 2, a 5-0 win over local rivals Cardiff, all following reaching the PDL2 final last season and plenty of academy products making their way into Nigel Pearson’s senior squad.

No wonder Hines was delighted as he discussed man of the moment Tommy Conway, who was named as the EFL’s Young Player for August in the last few days.

Here’s every word the coach said on the Bristol City U21s, new boy Stefan Bajic, returning goalkeeper Dean Gerken, Ben Acey and Alex Scott and much more.

Bristol City U21s were a lot more clinical [against Cardiff] than they have have been in the last few games...

Yes, it's something that we've worked on. We want to be better at scoring our goals and converting our chances. It definitely worked for us today. Again, keeping a clean sheet is vital for us so we've been really pleased with the work today.

What did you make of Stefan Bajic in his first appearance?

He took a couple of really good crosses, very calm with the ball, fitted in our style of play really well. We were really pleased for him to get a clean sheet as well.

He's very vocal isn't he? Very commanding which is a sign of a confident keeper.

He is. He's trained with us a couple of times and he's trained with the first team a lot more. It's good to get him training with us, getting to know the players and the system of play that we do.

How much confidence does that give the lads, knowing that there's that pathway into the first team and that target to train with the first team?

It’s absolutely massive. Throughout the whole club, it comes from the first-team manager, comes from [academy director] Brian Tinnion, all the work that they do at the club.

It's huge and you can see it paying off at the moment, which is great. But we want to keep going, we don't want to stand still and we want to keep pushing more players in.

How much pride does it give you to see Tommy Conway doing so well this season?

Absolutely fantastic, he's done superbly. But they've got so many good players in that squad and hopefully, as an academy, we can keep pushing more players into that team.

You've got guys from further afield, such as Ben Acey on the bench and you had Alex Scott coming through. How do you meld them together and get that team spirit?

I think the work's done before they come. We know whether they're good people and whether they'd fit in. Tony Vance has done a great job over in Guernsey and links in with us.

Again, it's the work that the recruitment team here do as well, and they identify the player that will fit into the culture that we create. I think it's the environment that is created by the coaches, but also the players as well and I think they do that really well.

On the coaches, who are the key coaches who will be working with them? You've got Dean Gerken working with them, haven’t you?

Yes, Dean's just come back. He's doing a great job with the goalkeepers alongside Aaron Sainsbury. You've got Neil Swift, Micky Bell, Trevor Challis... But there's a host of people behind the scenes who do great jobs - the strength and conditioning guys, your sports scientist - there's a lot of teamwork that goes behind that.

A word on Brian Tinnion's eagle eye for talent and the others spotting these guys such as Ben, Alex from further afield... They play a big role for the club.

It's fantastic. We're fortunate to have Brian here and he does a great job. We're very fortunate to have him and long may that continue.