Ex-Nottingham Forest, Derby and Bolton star Cyrus Christie set for shock move | OneFootball

The 34-year-old former Premier League defender is set to go abroad following the cancellation of his contract with Championship side Bolton Wanderers.

Former Nottingham Forest and Derby defender Cyrus Christie, who played last season in Bolton Wanderers' promotion-winning team, is understood to be leaving England for a somewhat unusual destination.

Bolton Wanderers are settling into their return to the Championship following promotion from League One at the end of last season, but one of the players who helped to get them there will not be joining them for the next step of their journey.

For defender Cyrus Christie, there could be another journey set to take place, with reports that he could be set to move to the other side of the world, in doing so hooking up with a former Premier League legend who's made a career from coaching in Asia, with a shock move to Vietnam.

Cyrus Christie set for shock move to join Harry Kewell in Vietnam

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Cyrus Christie is reported to be on the verge of a shock move to Vietnam. According to reports from Sky Sports, the 33-year-old right-back is set to join Hanoi FC in Vietnam, where he would be playing under the former Leeds United and Liverpool legend Harry Kewell, who has been the manager of the V League 1 club since October 2025.

Although Christie is a seasoned international, having made 30 appearances for the Republic of Ireland, this move would be his outside of the English league system, despite having played for 8 different clubs, including Fulham, Nottingham Forest, Coventry City and Hull City, over a senior career which stretches back over a decade and a half.

Christie started this season with Bolton Wanderers, but the club released a statement on the 28th August confirming that the contract had been cancelled by mutual consent. He had signed for the club on a one-year contract in August 2025 with an option to extend by a year, but hadn't featured in any of their games this season.

Cyrus Christie left Bolton Wanderers with the best wishes of his former club

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Cyrus Christie may now have left Bolton Wanderers, but their statement upon his departure from the club was clear about the respect that the club had found for him during his stay with them.

Head coach Steven Schumacher said of Christie that: "Cyrus has been a pleasure to work with from the first day he walked through the door. He’s an outstanding professional, a really good guy and the sort of experienced head every dressing room needs - particularly during a season like the one we’ve just had."

Christie made 23 appearances in League One for Bolton throughout 2025-26, and came on from the bench towards the end of their play-off final win against Stockport County at the end of the season.

Prior to that, he'd played for a host of clubs in the Championship and League One, and he made 23 Premier League appearances for Fulham during the 2018-19 season.

There are few names in the Hanoi FC team that would be familiar to football watchers in England, with the most well-known being the former Australia international Adam Taggart, who signed for Fulham in 2014 but never played a League match for them because of injuries. The 2026-27 Vietnamese league season hasn't yet started, but his team ended 2025-26 in fourth place. They have been the champions of Vietnam six times, though they haven't won the league title since 2022.

It will certainly be a new challenge for Christie, who was promoted twice through the play-offs with Fulham in 2018 and 2020, as well as his promotion with Bolton Wanderers last season. At the end of a long career in England, what comes next for him will be unlike anything that he's experienced throughout his career so far.