Manchester United’s recent trip to Anfield was many things to many people. For Ruben Amorim, it was the chance to pull off an unlikely second league win on the bounce at a stadium which has long served as an arena of pain for the Red Devils.
For Arne Slot, it was an opportunity to halt Liverpool’s abrupt drop-off in form with a familiar thumping of their biggest rivals. For United forward Matheus Cunha and Liverpool midfielder Florian Wirtz it was another match to try and get off the mark with a first competitive goal contribution for the club they joined for big money in the summer.
The game ended 2-1 to United, leaving Amorim reflecting on the biggest win of his time at United and Slot frustrated with his opposition’s game plan. There was no change in the goal or assist column for Cunha or Wirtz but it was United’s Brazilian who came off best in the very specific head-to-head battle neither of them asked to be in.
Under the radar
The Wirtz comparison is useful only insofar as he is currently the focal point for media scrutiny of a statistically underperforming mega-money star. How he is dealing with it isn’t relevant here, but it could go some way to explaining how Cunha has largely avoided being this year’s poster boy for having no goals or assists in 11 and eight games respectively.
The other possibility is that the Brazilian’s ferocious start to his Old Trafford career isn’t quantifiable in metrics, but has already established him as a key man in Amorim’s operation.
Occupying a spot in any front three, let alone an expensively-refurbished United one tasked with addressing a chronic lack of attacking output last season, should in itself be an indicator of potent goal threat or creative brilliance.
But the man who bagged 17 goals for a despondent Wolverhampton Wanderers last season is yet to score or provide in United red, and so far that is not necessarily a cause for concern.
Passes the eye test
All it took was one surging run from his own half into the Arsenal penalty area on opening day to announce Cunha’s arrival as a driving force for United, an injection of intensity into a side notoriously steeped in apathy.
And all it took was one sumptuous touch and flick around Ben White in that same match to prove that his flair is razor-sharp, that he is a one-man samba band already upstaging the arhythmic thump of last season’s flatlining attack.
No United player has attempted more take-ons in the Premier League this season than the audacious Cunha, and more to the point he also leads the way in successfully beating his man.
But arguably his best moment in a United shirt so far came in his own half against Liverpool, with his side clinging grimly to their 2-1 lead. Facing his own goal on the left byline he doggedly held off Jeremie Frimpong before wriggling past the Dutchman, squeezing past an incoming Wirtz and, almost prostrate, slipping the ball to a teammate.
It wasn’t pretty except it was, an iron will to win housed in a six-foot Brazilian willing to do the dirty work and doing it with panache.
Levels still to reach
This isn’t to let Cunha off the hook entirely – at some point he must start producing – but the signs are positive. In terms of traditional forward play, he has taken the second-most shots of anyone in the squad this season (17), and 41% of them have been on target – the third-best accuracy figures.
Meanwhile only two players – Bruno Fernandes and Amad – are underperforming their xG more than Cunha, who is operating at -1.4 at time of writing.
Of course, these stats can just as easily be weaponised against the 26-year-old – how can a £62.5m player have taken that many shots and have nothing to show for them? How can his xG be that poor?
Fair points in isolation, but at this stage dwarfed by context. Cunha is walking the walk just like we knew he would, and talking most of the talk – when the coiled-spring Brazilian gets clinical, there will be little doubt which of United’s summer signings was the best buy.
Featured image Stu Forster via Getty Images
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Joe Ponting
Joe has spent more than half his life writing about football and all of it following United. As a child he told a doctor his name was ‘Paul Scholes’, but could never pick a pass like him no matter how much he tried. He cut his teeth working in print media for local newspapers and entered football journalism covering the grassroots game for the Non-League Paper. Here he achieved a career high, interviewing United legend Sir Bobby Charlton to get his views on the lower echelons of the football pyramid. To kill time during international breaks Joe writes album reviews and has strong views on post punk for Plus One Magazine.
