Harry Cornick’s at pains to insist it wasn’t a deciding factor, but making the move from a club you’ve spent the last six-and-a-half years of your life - representing the vast majority of your professional career - to a totally new environment was probably made that tiny bit easier by the fact his girlfriend Ashleigh is from Bristol and a family of Robins fans.
Having moved to Luton towards the end of last year from her hometown, and with no slight intended on that corner of Bedfordshire, she was delighted to learn that Cornick's next destination was the West Country.
Cornick was one of two arrivals for City on deadline day, as Nigel Pearson was able to bring summer transfer plans forward to sign the versatile and dynamic forward in the wake of Antoine Semenyo’s sale to Bournemouth.
The 27-year-old had six months remaining on his deal at Luton Town and was swapping a team battling for a play-off place - having finished last season in sixth - for one at the opposite end of the table. But Cornick was sold a project by Pearson, and after struggling for consistent game time under Rob Edwards following Nathan Jones’ departure, a three-year contract and a team he thinks caters to his strengths as a footballer, it was a relatively straightforward call.
Like every new signing at City he speaks of wanting to reach the Premier League and the clubs facility but there’s a personal quest as well, of finding greater goalscoring consistency - and, in that sense, this should prove a mutually-beneficial relationship.
“He (Pearson) said I was an exciting player, I work hard for the team, my pressing is really good and he wanted to bring that to Bristol City to try and put the team on the front foot and impose themselves on other teams,” Cornick said. “He spoke about that and also my Championship experience, and helping the young lads where I can. Ultimately, just impress on the pitch and be myself and try and get goals and assists and help the team.
“For me, personally now, it’s about getting numbers on the board and getting more goals and assists and to try and get the end product of playing well, which will be good for me personally.
"But it’s also about being a good character around the changing room and helping other people improve because once you get a good team spirit going, you get a lot of people buying into the same goal; we all have the same end goal at this club to get into the Premier League, whether that’s this year - if we get to the play-offs, which is a long shot - but if we do it next season, it’s about building relationships between each other to know that’s our end goal and we’re all going to help each other to get there.”
Cornick’s progression as a footballer has run concurrently with Luton’s own rise through the divisions, having signed for the Hatters in 2017 after not quite making the breakthrough at Bournemouth, he’s steadily improved through the divisions from League Two to Championship, and insists there’s still a lot of improvement in his game.
He’s an interesting footballer in the sense he wasn’t part of an academy until he was 18, as the Cherries signed him from non-league Christchurch, and, relatively speaking, is a late bloomer. As he turns 28 later this season, what should be his peak years are expected to be in a red shirt.
Able to play across the front three - Pearson has used him so far down the right and as a sort of flexible No9 - as he mentions above, Cornick appears the design of what Pearson wants in a forward player: quick, agile, athletic and with a willingness to work, on and off the ball.
The idea of forming bonds on the pitch is an important one - with Kal Naismith already helping his adjustment to his new surroundings - is an important one. In his most prolific season at Luton, where he scored 13 goals in 43 games, with four assists, his partnership with Elijah Adebayo became symbiotic; each man knew where the other was going to be and how to find them. Carlton Morris was a similarly physically imposing forward but at City, Cornick finds himself playing alongside a very different group of forwards.
As Pearson has now decreed, each one of Nahki Wells, Andi Weimann, Sam Bell, Mark Sykes, Anis Mehmeti and Tommy Conway - who he’s yet to play with - are quick, nimble and perfect attackers in transition. Having mastered what to do in Jones’ Luton, Cornick admits he’s now studying each of his colleagues’ habits, to learn a new way of scoring goals.
“At Luton I played with Elijah and Carlton a lot and they’re 6ft 4 and they’re huge and they’d win most of the headers and I’d run off them but, joining this squad, it’s a different sort of calibre of player in terms of what their strengths are,” Cornick added.
“I’m quite versatile along the front three, out wide or through the middle, whatever the manager thinks is best for me in a game. Every game is different in the Championship, different players’ strengths can be used against different opposition, if they’re got a slower backline or a big strong backline, wherever the gaffer thinks I’m the most effective.
“Last year was one of my best years, it was brilliant for me. I had a good relationship with Elijah, he was big, strong and quick, he did his bit and I could play off him - we flourished together. I can hopefully start relationships with players, once I see what everyone is capable of and then I can learn what they can do to help me, and what I can do to help them.
“At Luton last year, I sort of worked out how to score goals in that team - working on the flick-ons, or watching the wing-backs Amari’i Bell and James Bree, when they were there, making my way into the box and making the same run.
“Now I’m here I’m learning that Scotty is going to drive through with the ball and try and slip people in - that’s his sort of game. Sykesy gets down the right-hand side, puts some great balls into the box. It’s now learning how I’m going to score goals in this team; how the players are effective, their strengths and my strengths and we’ll get more goals that way.
“It’s a lot of counter-attacking goals, one on ones and getting cut-backs - this is why it’s a very exciting team, the front six or seven are all quick, all strong, all want to run forward and the counter-attacking play that we’ve seen already in the last four games I’ve been a part of has been frightening in terms of the amount of chances we’ve created.”
City’s identity is increasingly being driven by their self-sufficiency in developing players with the volume of academy players in the first-team and matchday squad now the norm, rather than an anomaly. In his early chats with Naismith about what to expect, Cornick admits that was seen as a major plus point of the environment.
“Even in training you can see it, there are lots of young and talented players who have the potential to have great careers”, Cornick said. “And it’s not like they bring the standard of training down or they’re not used to it, they’re experienced, they’ve played a lot of games - they’ve been thrown in at the deep end and they’re flourishing. So they deserve every bit of credit they’re getting because they’re great players now and have the potential to get even better.
“When I joined I spoke to Kal about the squad depth and he said there were a lot of young players who were chomping at the bit to play and I’ve seen that from day one in training, everyone is pushing each other to try and improve and you know if you want to get in the team you have to be playing and training well. .
"The competition is only healthy and push the club in the right direction; everyone is fighting to get in the team to do their bit to help the club win more games and move up the table.”
Of course, for all the talk of the collective, there are certain individuals who have stood out at the High Performance Centre and on a matchday with Cornick wowed by the feet of fellow deadline day arrival Anis Mehmeti but also been reassured by the fact the hype in Alex Scott is justified.
“He’s very talented. His feet are unbelievable,” Cornick says, adding extra stress to the syllables in “unbelievable”. “He’s very good in training every day. He’s got so much talent and so much potential, because he’s only a young boy.
“Alex Scott is probably the one. I spoke to Kal about players and who was here. I’ve trained with him the last few weeks and I’ve seen why there’s such a hype around him because he’s a humble boy, he works hard but he’s also so talented. He knows he’s talented - it’s not he’s arrogant about it - but he knows he’s so good at football and he can and show it.”
SIGN UP: For our daily Robins newsletter, bringing you the latest from Ashton Gate
READ NEXT
