Manchester City have sent 19-year-old full-back Codie Thomas to Nottingham Forest on a season-long loan. Thomas has made four appearances for City’s senior team since progressing through the club’s youth system, but her first-team experience has so far come through isolated opportunities rather than an extended run of matches.
A full campaign with Forest gives her the chance to change that. After academy football, injury disruption and a previous loan at Glasgow City, Thomas has reached the stage where her development needs the repetition that only regular senior involvement can provide.
Transfer Snapshot
Player: Codie Thomas
Age: 19
Position: Full-back
From: Manchester City
To: Nottingham Forest
Transfer status: Season-long loan
Contract: Until the end of the 2026-27 season
A Senior Debut Without a Senior Role
Thomas made her Manchester City debut in a UEFA Women’s Champions League match against St Pölten in October 2024.
She signed her first professional contract two months later and made another European appearance as a late substitute in the reverse fixture. Further opportunities followed from the bench against Leicester City in the WSL and Everton in the League Cup.
Those matches introduced Thomas to several different levels of senior competition, but four appearances are not enough to establish a player’s place or accelerate every part of her development.
Short cameos can show that a young defender is trusted within the senior environment. They cannot recreate the demands of starting matches regularly, managing difficult periods or maintaining form across an entire campaign. That is the experience City will now hope she can find at Forest.
Glasgow Provided the First Test
Codie Thomas’s progress has already been interrupted by injury, which kept her out during part of her early senior development. After returning to action, she remained an important player for City’s Next Gen side during 2025-26 and later spent part of the campaign on loan at Glasgow City.
That move gave her experience away from the system in which she had grown up. Thomas also helped Glasgow City win the Premier League Cup, adding a first senior trophy to her early career.
The Glasgow spell provided an initial step into a new dressing room and competitive environment. The move to Nottingham is more substantial because it covers an entire season.
Thomas will have pre-season and a full league campaign in which to establish herself, respond to competition and demonstrate what she can offer beyond academy football.
Why Nottingham Forest Is the Next Test
Forest finished seventh in WSL 2 last season and will again compete in the second tier under Tom Mallison.
The level offers Thomas a bridge between Manchester City’s Next Gen side and the demands of breaking into a WSL first team. She will be playing senior football in England while remaining close enough to City’s environment for her progress to be followed throughout the campaign.
The loan does not guarantee that she will start every week. Thomas must earn her position inside a Forest squad with its own competitive priorities.
That uncertainty is part of the value. Development at senior level involves more than technical improvement; it requires a player to win trust, respond when left out and produce performances that matter to another club’s season. Forest are not simply hosting a Manchester City prospect. They need a full-back capable of contributing to their own campaign.
A Season That Must Provide Evidence
Codie Thomas’s versatility as a young full-back and her experience in City’s academy have brought her to the edge of senior football. The coming season must show whether she is ready to move beyond that edge.
By the time she returns to Manchester, City should have more than four first-team cameos and youth performances on which to judge her. They will be able to assess how she handled a full WSL 2 schedule, whether she established a place at Forest and how her game developed through repeated senior challenges.
Thomas does not need another introduction to first-team football. This loan is designed to give her a body of work within it.
Source: Manchester City