Matheus Cunha should be used to overpriced accusations, but having the finger of blame pointed by Newcastle and Sporting should help Manchester United.
As the most pivotal summer transfer window at Old Trafford since the last stumbles into a second month under the duress of impasses and ‘huge blows’, it seems important to take stock.
Ruben Amorim implored his employers to be “brave”, and solving problems in attack by spending £62.5m of a thoroughly limited budget on a forward who has reached double digits for goals in three of eight seasons as a professional, while absurdly overvaluing a problem winger and three other players in the same position when selling to buy is imperative, arguably ticks that box.
The hope is that Matheus Cunha is at the absolute least a character upgrade on Alejandro Garnacho and his fellow bomb squad members; the Brazilian needs to be a solider willing to make sacrifices rather than a sulk who disrupts the dressing room.
But Wolves supporters might be interested in what results any due diligence on and personality assessment of Cunha returned after the disciplinary issues and social media shenanigans which threatened to derail their season.
It would be entirely on-brand for Manchester United to not only adopt a new recruitment strategy about half a decade after their contemporaries first implemented it, but for them to also a) part with the individual responsible for it within a year, and b) then completely ignore it.
Does signing a potential ‘knob-end’ count as a violation of the ‘no-dickheads’ policy which has formed the foundation of many of modern sport’s great teams? It is certainly a grey area.
But if Cunha did not already sense a suffocating pressure upon securing his “dream” move to a fallen giant, the weight of responsibility for distorting the entire market could be felt soon.
It would be foolish to pretend Sporting president Frederico Varandas and the contacts of a prominent Newcastle journalist do not have ulterior motives, and that the mere mention of Manchester United does not magnify a story tenfold.
Yet an elite athlete can only take those two separate instances of scapegoating personally. Cunha has been specifically cited as both a case study for Sporting when increasing the asking price for Viktor Gyokeres, and the exorbitant reason for Newcastle not yet signing a single player.
Whether being used as the justification for external avarice or incompetence, it seems a little harsh considering Cunha’s age, Premier League pedigree and established history of gradually rising in value to hold him as 2025’s Neymar, the signing against which all others should be measured and inflated.
A forward with 42 goals and assists in 82 Premier League appearances, who turned 26 in May and is a fixture in the Brazil national team, having a release clause activated which ranks him around 20th in terms of the most expensive British signings ever, seems relatively standard fare.
Yet the addition of Manchester United to the equation inevitably makes Cunha either a yardstick, a stick to beat his new club with or preferably both.
It is an accusation the player should be used to. His £44m move to Wolves in January 2023 seemed a flagrant waste of money when it produced two goals in 17 games in his first half-season, but Cunha soon realised his potential at Molineux under Gary O’Neil, the future of Manchester United coaching.
The ‘overpriced’ label is one thing, but the lowest bar in terms of hope and expectation is that Sir Jim Ratcliffe does not feel compelled to name Cunha as one of the “overpaid” players the club is still paying for years later.
Those instalments have hampered Manchester United in this critical transfer window and increased the need for Cunha to hit the ground sprinting; Newcastle and Sporting pointing the finger is just added motivation.
