Luton manager Nathan Jones is delighted to see Harry Cornick developing a ruthless streak in front of goal after he struck twice in his side’s 2-0 victory at Millwall.
Cornick’s second double in three games for the Hatters saw his season tally move up to six goals, just three off his best total in a single campaign for the club.
It is certainly a big improvement on last season, in which the 26-year-old only found the net once, and he had previously never scored twice in a game before his brace in last month’s rout of Coventry.
However, his two finishes at The Den were those of a player high on confidence, as he helped Luton up to 10th in the Championship.
Jones said: “He’s probably been labelled as not being able to finish in times past.
“He’s a wonderful player for us – last year he had chances and scored one goal, but he had chance after chance last year.
“He’s just such a dangerous player and we’re delighted with him because we’ve had him for three or four years now – we signed him in League Two.
“The first goal was top draw. If that’s on Match of the Day tonight, from a Premier League player, then we’re drooling a little bit.
“The second was a finish that he really works at week in, week out because he gets those chances regularly.
“Sometimes he doesn’t score, but he’s adding a real clinical edge to his game and we’re delighted because it made the difference today.
“He’s starting to turn all that endeavour and that movement into goals, so we’re very happy because we’re reaping the benefit.”
Luton were ahead after 11 minutes when James Bree battled for possession before finding Jordan Clark, who laid the ball off for Cornick to sweep a first-time shot into the top corner.
He struck again eight minutes into the second half, finishing calmly into the bottom corner this time after being picked out by Clark once more.
Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu then almost added a spectacular third for the Hatters when his 30-yard piledriver smashed off the bar, with Millwall goalkeeper Bartosz Bialkowski a spectator.
Millwall had a big chance to pull one back with seven minutes left after Kal Naismith handled in his own area, but Jed Wallace’s penalty was superbly kept out by Luton goalkeeper Simon Sluga, who also denied Matt Smith a consolation in stoppage time.
Millwall boss Gary Rowett said: “It was disappointing because to go into the game off the back of a seven-game unbeaten run, to have won two games in a row and be three points off the play-offs…
“To be really quite excited about putting a performance in front of our fans at home that showed we’re desperate to get where we want to be.
“I’m disappointed today – I just think we didn’t look like we quite had that extra bit of drive, that extra bit of competitive nature about us.
“We looked like we wanted the game to be a little bit nice and I felt Luton came and did all the right things an away team needs to do.
“They’ve scored with two counter-attacks, when we had opportunities to play forward and opportunities to deal with, and we didn’t.
“We had the ball nicked off us trying to place nice little passes.”
