Why Bolton Wanderers should try to sign Harry Cornick and QPR man in the first week of January | OneFootball

Bolton Wanderers should make a move to try and sign both Harvey Vale and Harry Cornick in the January transfer window.

Bolton Wanderers are heading into the January transfer window in a position where they should be fighting for automatic promotion from League One at least, with the title also well within their grasp should they enjoy a strong second-half to the campaign.

Steven Schumacher was granted a major overhaul of the Bolton squad in the summer, with 14 new signings being balanced against a litany of outgoings, from key first-teamers not having their contracts renewed to previously key men being sold or even supposed squad men eventually loaned out.

It has seen Bolton adopt a completely new tactical approach with a new system, too, but there is still work to be done on what is a strong and deep squad that does still have a few holes to be filled.

It wouldn’t be a shock to see Bolton trim a squad that is full to the brim in terms of the players allowed by the EFL, with Will Forrester among those talked about leaving, as has been reported by Alan Nixon.

However, should things go to plan in that regard there will also, therefore, then be room to manouvre in terms of incomings and Bolton should be seeking to strengthen once again from a good position, with two players that should be right at the top of their wish-list being Harry Cornick and Harvey Vale.

Harry Cornick

A week before the start of the season, with Victor Adeboyejo a long-term absentee and Sam Dalby having been ruled out in pre-season due to a hamstring injury after joining, Bolton poached Mason Burstow on loan from Hull City.

It was deemed a panic signing by many supporters, simply to ensure they had a senior player up-front to start the season, but the former Chelsea man thrived in the opening couple of months of the campaign.

His overall game has remained strong, despite a general dip in form, and the goals have now dried up for the Charlton Athletic academy graduate, but Dalby has yet to put in consistently good enough performances to steal the starting spot.

With Adeboyejo yet to play a minute despite returning to first-team training and suggesting a departure in January is likely, Bolton signing another striker would not be a shock and thinking outside of the box with someone like Harry Cornick, who has barely featured for Bristol City so far this season, could be a shrewd move.

Cornick, a player who showed his best football a few years ago with Luton Town, is someone who gained a reputation for having moments of genuine class bolstered by an extremely impressive work ethic.

In a Bolton side whereby the striker is required to lead the line, occasionally drop deep and create space for the wide men, such as Thierry Gale and Amario Cozier-Duberry, a striker of the profile of Cornick, who is smart as a facilitator of others as well as someone with an eye for goal himself, would appear a very good pick up.

Now at the age of 30, Cornick will be in desperate need of finding some regular minutes and so dropping a division may well be a necessity for the former Luton Town man.

Having been someone who has hit double figures in the Championship in the past, scoring 12 goals in 38 Championship games for the Hatters in the 2021/22 season, Cornick would bring a level of pedigree at a higher level that the Bolton squad is missing.

Harvey Vale

Having joined from Chelsea last winter, Harvey Vale struggled at the start of his Queens Park Rangers spell in the second-half of last season but has been brought into being close to a key member of the squad at Loftus Road under the management of Julien Stephan.

Starts have remained limited for Vale, despite gaining a lot more experience in Championship football from the start of this season and showing some signs of quality with a goal and an assist early on.

However, it could well be fairly argued that he was benefitting from the absence of summer signing Kwame Poku, who joined QPR from Peterborough United in the summer, playing in the same position as Vale, more or less, as a left-footed right-sided midfielder.

Having sustained an injury in the autumn, and with Poku getting back to full fitness in a squad chock-full of similarly rated stars in that position, off the right or in the ‘ten’, such as Karamoko Dembele and Ilias Chair to name a couple, it could well be that Vale finds minutes hard to come by again and a loan move to finish off the campaign could suit both himself and the R’s.

Vale would be an ideal solution to Bolton’s problem of potentially running star man Cozier-Duberry into the ground on the right, but would also provide a solution in the attacking midfield role.

That role has been occupied by John McAtee, Joel Randall, Aaron Morley, Marcus Forss, even Burstow himself and Kyle Dempsey so far this season with nobody, other than glimpses from Forss and Dempsey, showing that they can make it their own.

It would be a coup as he has formed more of a part of things at west London than previously, but it is still a move that may well be worth exploring for Bolton as they seek a point of difference in the League One run-in.