Ask around Manchester United about Matheus Cunha and the overwhelming consensus is that he cares a lot.
He cares a lot about fulfilling his potential, cares a lot about injecting life into en ever-changing dressing room, cares a lot about getting to know club staff, cares a lot about connecting with fans, cares a lot about his own numbers.
Cunha speaks five languages – fluent in Portuguese, English, French and Spanish with a bit of Italian – which has helped make him a centrepiece of the United dressing room. He deals with club staff directly, rather than through agents like other players.
Team-mates flock to him and he has struck up a particularly close relationship with Luke Shaw since arriving. Academy players who have stepped into first-team training sessions rave privately about Cunha for helping them settle in.
There are countless tales but let’s take one from the past fortnight, when he attended the Manchester United Disabled Supporters’ Association (MUDSA) Christmas lunch. Cunha was particularly taken by a blind supporter and spent 15 minutes talking to him about his experiences of following the team.
Cunha grew up in Brazil playing in midfield, before taking on a more attacking role in recent years. But the perception on these shores is one of a player who is solely responsible for goals. No goals equals bad player, and even with his two strikes in a week just before Christmas he has just three in 16 games for United.
Ask around Manchester United about Matheus Cunha and the overwhelming consensus is that he cares a lot
After a slow start in front of goal for United since his £62.5m move from Wolves, Cunha struck twice in a week just before Christmas
Cunha has struck up a particularly close relationship with Luke Shaw
That’s been thrown back at him a lot since his £62.5million move from Wolves, given he fired 27 goals across his final two seasons at Molineux.
But before that he’d only hit double figures for goals once in his career, and Cunha doesn’t fit an era of measuring a player’s value solely on goals and assists. On and off the pitch, United have been much better off with him.
Opponents’ fixation not to leave him one-v-one opens up space for others, while his work rate means he is an integral cog in United’s press, a key improvement this season which has helped elevate them to fifth in the table as the league’s third-highest scorers, behind only Manchester City and Arsenal.
‘Matheus is a fantastic footballer, a little bit of a maverick,’ Tom Heaton said on the Inside Carrington podcast last week. ‘He’s brought really good energy into the dressing room. He’s been superb.’
Signing Cunha was Ruben Amorim’s No 1 priority following defeat in the Europa League final by Tottenham Hotspur. Amorim had been sowing the seed of a move for months, both to Cunha – he collared him in the Old Trafford tunnel after Wolves beat United 1-0 in April where he asked his thoughts on the atmosphere – and to the board, due to the Brazilian’s character as well as his tactical versatility.
Already this season Cunha has operated as a striker and No 10, then on the left wing in the switch to 4-2-3-1. Cunha has often had to be the one to sacrifice for the team’s greater good, particularly when up front, which wasn’t part of his brief at Wolves.
‘He was thinking too much about the numbers,’ Amorim said this month. ‘The influence that he has in the team is so important for us, but I think Cunha has so much to grow defensively and offensively.
‘I think he has more levels to go. He’s in a different club, different pressure. He coped with that really well, but he feels that he wants to score, he wants to assist.’
Cunha had scored 27 league goals in his final two seasons at Wolves, including straight from a corner in the Boxing Day win over United a year ago
Signing Cunha was Ruben Amorim’s No 1 priority following defeat in the Europa League final by Tottenham Hotspur
Three goal contributions in his past four games suggest a growing confidence. For Amorim, Cunha’s ability to be fearless in high-pressure moments is what separates him from others and why he has no doubts about his long-term suitability in United’s No 10 shirt.
‘We need that crazy guy where the world is on fire but you say “I don’t care”,’ Amorim has said. ‘It’s not just the leaders but the maverick guys that we need in the team.’
Those close to Cunha point to his penalty miss at Grimsby Town – which would have won a shootout they went on to lose – as a moment that took a while to get over.
There have been misses that needed flushing out the system: Arsenal at home when David Raya produced a super save, Fulham away, Wolves away and, more recently, a miscued header that would likely have salvaged a point at Aston Villa.
What is less easy for Cunha to focus on is how central he has been in areas that won’t show up in any statistical metric.
The gameplan in the win at Liverpool was largely built around playing him as a No 9 instead of Benjamin Sesko, and he assumed responsibility to drive United away from their own box in the Boxing Day win over Newcastle, when youngsters such as Ayden Heaven and Jack Fletcher were looking to him for help.
‘He’s just given us all confidence to play,’ said Heaven earlier this season. ‘He is going to help the team and help us to improve. He’s quite lively in the changing room so he’s fitted in well. You always need that in in the changing room and he plays a big role.’
Much like Amorim, Cunha cares deeply. That trait has delivered a lot of mutual respect and neither is more critical of their own performances than themselves.
Those close to Cunha point to his penalty miss at Grimsby Town – which would have won a shootout they went on to lose – as a moment that took a while to get over
The gameplan in the win at Liverpool was largely built around playing him as a No 9
‘I think our mentality this season, of doing everything we can to bring United back to its glory days, is the most important thing for me,’ Cunha told ESPN Brasil recently. ‘How we are working, how we have sacrificed to the maximum so that this happens again.’
Cunha is a deep thinker and spends a lot of his time away from United at home with his family, which saw the arrival of a daughter during the summer. They and Cunha’s friends, including the family’s private chef, sit in his box at the back of the Stretford End for home matches.
Another reunion with Wolves tonight invariably puts the spotlight back on Cunha’s goals and assists – or lack thereof – so far.
But look at the stark differences from last season at both clubs, and you’ll find your answer of just how valuable Cunha really is.
