Former Wolves first-team coach Ian Burchnall spoke to the MEN about Matheus Cunha’s move to Man United.
What can Manchester United fans expect from Matheus Cunha this season? “He’s the kind of player who gets fans off their seats because he can produce moments of brilliance out of nowhere,” responded Ian Burchnall.
“Matheus is a sort of player that you don’t see as much now because the game is extremely tactical. I’ve talked to him on a matchday about something and he’s been like ‘it’s okay, I’ll figure it out, don’t worry’.
“I remember Bobby Robson telling a story about Paul Gascoigne at the 1990 World Cup when England played against Germany. He wanted to speak to Gazza about Lothar Matthaus and he just said ‘boss, smoke your cigar and leave him to me.’ That’s a little bit like Matheus. He wants to feel the game.”
Burchnall spent a season and a half working as a first-team coach at Wolves when Gary O’Neil was in charge and his time at Molineux coincided with Cunha playing the most consistent football of his career.
Cunha has said O’Neil “understood him completely” at Wolves and credited him for finding joy in his football again. The Brazilian was not an established starter during Julen Lopetegui’s tenure as Wolves boss, but affection from O’Neil and his coaching staff was the catalyst to get him motoring in the Premier League.
“We were still trying to find the best role for him when we arrived,” Burchnall said. “I joined six games into the campaign, but Cunha was superb in the opening game against Man United.
“I think Gary was playing around a little bit with the system and shape, with Pedro Neto switching sides, and that obviously affected Cunha, so we moved him around a little bit. But we played Manchester City at the end of September and Cunha was magnificent, especially defensively.
“We settled on a 3-4-3 with Pedro Neto, Hwang Hee-chan and Cunha. Once Matheus started to bed into the left No.10 role, he started to fly. He didn’t get going under Lopetegui, but he started to flourish.”
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Burchnall continued: “You can see it straight away with Matheus. His technical capabilities are unbelievable, his finishing is superb and he hits with crazy power. I remember talking to him and he said he didn’t play any formal football until he was 14. He was big on playing futsal.
“You see how he receives the ball with his sole and manipulates it, it’s futsal-driven. He can kill the ball and go from being stationary to accelerating past people – he does that ridiculously well.”
Cunha is preparing for the 2025/2026 season as a United player, following a £62.5million move from the West Midlands at the start of July.
“We had a lot of discussions about how to get the best out of Matheus Cunha because he’s such a fantastic talent,” admitted Burchnall.
“If you get the best out of him, there’s a good chance you’re going to win football matches. And a lot of the games we were successful in at Wolves, Matheus had a huge hand in that.
“We knew he would be important, so we spent a lot of time thinking about how we could get him into the best positions and into space. Gary spent a lot of time one-to-one with Matheus, trying to help get the best out of him.
“If you look at his career so far, he’s probably had his most consistent period of good performances in a Wolves shirt. We got to where we wanted to be with him and got a lot of him.”
There were two keys to unlocking the best from Cunha at Wolves: playing him in the left side No.10 role and giving him freedom.
“I can totally understand why Manchester United would sign him, especially because of the system Ruben Amorim likes to play,” Burchnall said.
“He is tailor-made for that left No.10 role, the left forward position in the 3-4-3. It’s the perfect position for him. Sometimes, if we played 4-2-3-1 with a central No. 10 at Wolves, there was a big demand on the defensive role of that position out of possession.
“With a back five, I think he got more freedom, he could drift in and make a lot things happen. Matheus likes freedom. Too many constraints on training and too much coach-led stuff is not his favourite because he likes to be able to play and express himself in that setting.
“Of course, you have to work on other bits in training and those are the bits Matheus probably isn’t best at, but as soon as he gets some freedom and the chance to get on the ball, he can do some fantastic stuff.
“I think trying to understand the human on a deeper level helped get the best out of him. I think that’s something we were really conscious of because we gave him the freedom to be himself.
“After he signed for Man United, I sent him a text to say congratulations, it’s a fantastic move, and I said just keep being yourself, Matheus, because that’s really important. And he just responded, ‘of course, my friend, I’ll keep being myself, but maybe just a little bit better’.
“The out-of-possession areas were probably where we felt we needed to demand a bit more from Matheus. But there’s always that trade-off where he needs energy for transitions and counter-attacks.
“We knew sometimes some others would have to do that work to enable him to get on the ball. We were conscious that it was never going to be the biggest part of his game.
“He isn’t known for that and rightly so, so we had to create a situation where we got him defensively into shape and with enough energy to impact the game when we needed him.”
Cunha was a priority target for Amorim and he has settled into his new surroundings better than anyone could have hoped for, moving into a house and becoming immediately popular at Carrington
Amorim has praised Cunha’s character and outgoing personality. The Brazilian is understood to be popular with staff at Carrington and is naturally closest with fellow Portuguese speakers, Bruno Fernandes, Diogo Dalot, Casemiro and Manuel Ugarte in the dressing room.
“He’s a really nice guy, always smiling and upbeat,” said Burchnall. “He’s a character and enjoys football. But you saw it in some moments last season, like against Ipswich, which was our last game, and later down the line against Bournemouth in the FA Cup, he’s an emotional guy.
“He’s passionate, your typical South American, so he has that side to him as well. He trains and plays on the edge a little bit, but when it’s done and dusted, he’s a nice guy, a family guy and a funny guy, so I’m sure he’s going to have an influence in the dressing room and be a really good guy to have around.”
Burchnall laughed as he explained Cunha would like to play a game with a reserve goalkeeper in the training session before a match. “He would like to do certain shooting exercises right at the end of sessions, getting balls served into him to take different shots, and he would take a penalty,” he said.
“He’d end by taking a pen and would definitely offer the keeper something if he would save it – and I rarely saw the goalkeeper get near one. I think that was just to keep himself on the edge. There’s no pressure in training, so offering the goalkeeper money or a dinner would focus his mind.”
Cunha was excellent in home and away fixtures against United last season, but his standout performance for Wolves came against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in February 2024.
“He scored an amazing goal against West Brom in the FA Cup and another against Nottingham Forest,” Burchnall said. “He was struggling with a calf injury and was playing through it, to be honest, and he scored an individual goal against Forest away that was just breathtaking.
“We weren’t sure whether he was going to be fit and available to play – and he scored two goals in that game. But Chelsea away was the standout. Matheus and Rayan Ait-Nouri were brilliant together down that side and some of the things they did were completely off the cuff.
“We would laugh on the bench and they were superb against Chelsea. We were 4-1 up in that game, Cunha scored a hat-trick, and the two of them were rotating positions, and you could see how much they were enjoying it.
“Thiago Silva scored a header from a corner to make it 4-2 with a few minutes to go and added time to follow, so it was panic stations. There was a little break and Gary got the players over to pass on tactical information.
“We couldn’t find Cunha, we looked across and he was sat down with his arm around the ball boy, having a chat with him. At the time, we were so stressed, but afterwards we laughed when we watched it back. He was so relaxed and that’s just him. He loves playing and expressing himself.”
Cunha was linked to other Premier League clubs ahead of the summer transfer window, but he only wanted to sign for United, which Burchnall believes should be a good career decision.
“There was talk of lots of different clubs being interested,” he said. “But Arsenal, for example, use a very different No.10. Martin Odegaard is one of the best No.10s out of possession and can drop deep, but it’s a very different role.
“I don’t know if Arsenal’s system would have got the best of Cunha because of their set-up, while Amorim has been uncompromising with his system and I think it’s very much a tailor-made for him.”
