Christiansen: City’s future is very bright | OneFootball

Izzy Christiansen believes City’s entire women’s set-up has a prosperous future ahead following the confirmation of our Next Gen Under-21s team.

The former Blues and England international will lead the side as they embark on our Professional Girls Academy (PGA) U21 League campaign across the 2025/26 term.

It follows the restructuring of our girls’ Academy which has also seen Hannah Dingley appointed as Girls’ Head of Academy who will establish a clear pathway between the Academy and the first-team while creating and executing our performance plan.

Christiansen, who was a member of our Under-16s coaching set-up last season, feels at home being back the club she played for with distinction between 2014 and 2018.

And she also paid tribute to the staff members and players who have laid the foundations for the next chapter for our girls’ youth system.

“This football club for me has always been the same in terms of what we want to do, we want to play good football, but we also want to have great people at our football club,” she explained.

WATCH: Izzy Christiansen interview

“I think that’s what pulled me back in as soon as I started the role with the Under-16s last year, I knew straight away my feet felt comfortable at the CFA and they were as a player as well.

“Not much has changed, but we do continue to evolve. Citizenship behaviour is something really important we try and instil, especially with young players and I can only credit massively the Academy staff.

“What I came into last season, I could sense a real togetherness, cohesion and some top top coaches and people who have driven the standards of very talented young players we’ve got.

“I’m not just saying it, the future is very bright. But we need to continue to grow that and move forward. I can’t speak highly enough of the staff I’m working with.”

City Next Gen’s opening PGA U21 assignment in a trip to Manchester United which represents the first of nine matches before the northern and southern sections divide.

The top four teams from each regionalised division will combine for a nationalised Group 1 and Group 2 which will be formed from the remaining teams from each north and south who missed out.

As well as creating a winning team on the field, Christiansen has also highlighted the importance of developing our players as people off it, too.

She added: “We want to create an environment where everyone comes into it and leaves a better person and player.

“We’d like to think they’ll never leave, but football doesn’t always work like that. We want to bulletproof the future for the players as individuals, as people, as footballers.

WATCH: City Next Gen announcement

“But also bulletproof our foundations so we’ve got a really strong, reputable Academy with our brilliant coaches who work with us and we want to make sure those foundations are secure.

“Of course, we want to win and we want to win football matches, in training there’s a real appetite you can feel it, the intensity is starting to ramp up and it kind of tells me that they’re arguing at the end of training how much they want to win. That’s a really good sign.

“We want to make sure we’re not just going to build it on sand, we want to build strong and firm and make sure we’re competitive in the league we’re in – knowing full well there’s other great academies out there as well.”