Matheus Cunha is the enigma that could finally solve Man United’s mess | OneFootball

There are reasons why a club with a diminishing income and limited leeway within Profitability and Sustainability Rules would submit a £62.5m offer around 48 hours after their season ended.

Manchester United, left with more questions after a torrid campaign, could look at the numbers and see that Matheus Cunha scored 15 Premier League goals last season. It is more than double the combined haul of Rasmus Hojlund and Joshua Zirkzee. They could add in the efforts of Marcus Rashford, Mason Mount and Antony in United shirts and still have fewer than Cunha had mustered by the end of February.

Or they might just be rationalising that it was a hefty price to pay to spare them some embarrassment. Because, in different ways and in the last two seasons, Cunha has contrived to show up his future employers.

In December at Molineux, he scored direct from a corner; Andre Onana’s ineffectual effort to prevent it from curling straight in may give them something to discuss when they share a dressing room.

If that was a one-off – or a two-off, considering Altay Bayindir had also contrived to concede straight from a corner the preceding week – the more significant display was Cunha’s opening-night impact in August 2023; even as United won 1-0, he seemed to destroy Erik ten Hag’s tactics for the season, exposing the flaws in his idea that he could play new signing Mount and Bruno Fernandes as high No. 8s. Cunha got the freedom of Old Trafford, highlighting the hole where United were supposed to have a midfield.

He was magnificent; but also an enigma. At that point, his record stood at 10 goals in his previous 95 games, spread across Wolves, Atletico Madrid and Hertha Berlin. He could seem a Molineux Mousa Dembele: a player with a rare combination of attributes, but also questions if he could convert his talent into goals and, even before that, where he actually played. Was he a centre forward? A No. 10? A midfielder? Someone who cut in from the left? Because he looked a bit of each, but not really any.

Matheus Cunha is closing on on signing for Manchester United (PA Wire)

Ruben Amorim’s system, which suits famously few of his current charges, could seem configured with Cunha in mind. Wolves have often played 3-4-3 in the last two seasons, whether under Gary O’Neil or Vitor Pereira. Cunha has sometimes led the line but prospered in particular as the left-sided No. 10; Amorim has tried Rashford, Zirkzee, Christian Eriksen and Alejandro Garnacho, but only Mount may really prefer to operate there.

Cunha’s ball-carrying ability, his capacity to drop deep and act as playmaker, his long-range shooting and his capacity to find pockets of space in the inside-left channel give him a different skill set to most of his new colleagues. It is possible to envisage Amorim’s new United taking shape: with Amad Diallo offering different qualities as a right-sided No 10 and Fernandes lending creativity from midfield.

Matheus Cunha waves goodbye to Wolves fans after the final game of the Premier League season (Getty Images)

And yet part of the curiosity of Cunha is that, at 24, he has overseen a transformation from impotent to prolific. He has credited O’Neil, saying he had a better relationship with the Englishman than with any previous manager. The player with 10 goals in 95 games – a return that even Hojlund or Zirkzee may deem disappointing – finishes his Wolves career with 30 in his last 65, several of them spectacular, many of them vital.

The infrequent scorer became the xG overachiever: he scored 12 from an expected goals of 10.23 last season, 15 from an expected goals of 8.45 this. At Atletico, Hertha and RB Leipzig, however, he tended to underperform in front of goal, even given the quality of chance.

Now there has been a sense Cunha became irresistible. Only Erling Haaland of Premier League regulars averaged more shots on target per 90 minutes last season, only Diogo Jota more shots. No one with 10 or more goals shot, on average, from further out. He also ranked 15th in the division for shot-creating actions; given United’s reliance on Fernandes and Amad to fashion chances, that could be useful. United were the antithesis of Cunha, dramatically underperforming their xG with their profligacy and with a mere seven percent chance conversion rate. They also didn’t create enough.

Matheus Cunha helped Wolves to survive (PA)

Cunha can seem to have the personality to play for United, the swagger to suit Old Trafford, the bravado that means he liked the limelight. And yet, if many a United flair player should want to be likened to Eric Cantona, Cunha has drawn the wrong sort of comparisons. An explosiveness brought one of the season’s stranger suspensions, for breaking the glasses of an Ipswich employee in a post-match melee. Against Bournemouth, he performed the triple whammy of hitting, kicking and headbutting Milos Kerkez as he was sent off.

In total, he was banned for six games. It was evidently no deterrent to United – indeed, Fernandes, their player of the year, saw red three times – just as the new contract Cunha signed in February, rather than ensuring he stayed at Molineux, contained the release clause that facilitated his departure.

So Cunha will become the biggest buy of Amorim’s reign; perhaps United’s statement signing of the summer, too, charged with giving cohesion and chemistry, goals and assists to a failing side. If conceding from a corner was one of a series of ignominies in United’s worst season in half a century, now the scorer has to prove the answer if they are to turn a corner.