He was a regular early on in 2021/22 - played 20-odd games up until the beginning of February - but then got hurt and didn't play another game after that.
It's fair to say that COD's career stagnated. Five years ago he was a solid squad player for a smaller Championship club, and now......he's a solid squad player for a smaller Championship club.
But unless his injury problems are likely to cause issues going forwards (I don't know.....they may), then it looks to me like Bristol are replacing a proven Championship player with one who may be able to play at that level, but who to this point has only shown himself to be a talented but erratic League One level player (Sykes has always looked skillful, and always worked hard in yellow - but in terms of end product, he really only had one good three month spell with us).