Following Wolverhampton Wanderers’ poor start to the 2024/25 season, there will no doubt be a few clubs keeping their eye on Matheus Cunha. The 25-year-old Brazilian has been one of the club’s standout performers the last couple of years and is far too good to end up in the Championship as he enters his prime.
Given that the Brazilian may be subject to some transfer interest in either the January or summer window of 2025, we wanted to take a close look at him and his career so far.
Key Information
Here is a key summary of Wolves’ current number 10, Matheus Cunha
- Date of Birth – 27th May 1999
- Country of Birth – Brazil
- Height – 6ft (1.84m)
- Preferred position – Attacking Midfield/Second Striker
- Senior Clubs Played For – Sion, RB Leipzig, Hertha BSC, Athletico Madrid, Wolves
- First International Cap – Chile vs Brazil (September 2021)
- Honours – Summer Olympic 2020 Gold Medal
Cunha’s Journey To Wolverhampton
Matheus Cunha has gone down a fairly interesting path as a professional footballer. He grew up playing in Brazil, made his professional debut in Switzerland and now plays in the heart of England. Cunha may have much of his career ahead of him but he has already experienced playing in four different countries and for five different clubs. Here is a brief overview of his footballing journey.
As a youngster, Cunha was more into his futsal than football. It was while playing futsal that his talents were noticed and he was invited to try out for Coritiba, known locally as Coxa. While representing Coritiba’s U20 team abroad in the Dallas Cup, Cunha was again singled out, this time by scouts from Swiss side FC Sion. Cunha was only 18 at the time but still able to impress among older players and he proved to be a very useful signing for Sion. He only stayed in Switzerland for the 2017/18 season as his performances convinced RB Leipzig to fork out 20 million Swiss francs for him (approximately £17.6m).
The move to Leipzig came a little too early though and Cunha struggled, scoring just two league goals in 25 Bundesliga appearances. He did show class in the Europa League though, netting six times, so clearly he had not gone entirely off the boil. Opportunities at Leipzig began to fade though and although they were in no rush to sell him, Cunha wanted to be at a new club where he could enjoy more minutes and more freedom on the pitch. With the Brazilian wanting out, Leipzig accepted a bid worth around €15m from German rivals Hetha Berlin.
If Leipzig was a ‘down’ in Cunha’s career, Herta definitely represented an ‘up’. The Germans were struggling when he joined but his contributions ensured they finished well clear of the drop zone. He began the 2021/22 season strongly too but suffered a dip before Christmas which led to clashes with boss Bruno Labaddia. Cunha was accused of lacking positional discipline when occupying the left flank of the team’s 4-3-3 formation.
Although he did not leave Hertha on a particularly high note, he still represented a good purchase for the German side. The Old Lady also made a decent profit on the Brazilian when selling him to Atletico Madrid for €26m. Starts were infrequent in Spain though with Cunha never handed the same kind of opportunities he enjoyed while at Hertha. Having started just 10 league games across the 2021/22 and 2022/23 seasons, Atletico sold him to Wolves on a loan with an obligation to buy price of £43m. Many queried the fee at the time, as Cunha was hardly firing in the goals, but he has proven his value since.
Goal Scoring Record
Although he sometimes leads the line as a centre forward, you will usually find Cunha playing off the central forward, either centrally or from the left. This is where he tends to be at his most productive and it is also a position where you expect a player to contribute both goals and assists. Although Cunha’s performance in these areas is far from record-breaking, they are definitely respectable.
First, let us take a look at Cunha’s goalscoring record. We will only look at complete seasons so this means covering every year between 2018/19 and 2023/24.
| Season | Minutes (all comps) | Goals (all comps) | Goals per Minute Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017/18 | 2,385 | 10 | 239 mins per goal |
| 2018/19 | 1,955 | 9 | 217 mins per goal |
| 2019/20 | 1,104 | 5 | 221 mins per goal |
| 2020/21 | 2,245 | 8 | 280 mins per goal |
| 2021/22 | 1,343 | 7 | 192 mins per goal |
| 2022/23 | 1,595 | 2 | 798 mins per goal |
| 2023/24 | 2,772 | 14 | 198 mins per goal |
With the exception of the 2022/23 season, in which Cunha was adapting to the rigours of the Premier League, the Brazilian has been scoring at a relatively steady rate. By and large, you can expect a goal from him every two to three matches, a very respectable rate for someone who is often not taking the number nine position. Just looking at goals though does not tell us how good at finishing Cunha is, to get a better picture of that, we will need to examine his expected goals.
Cunha’s Performances vs xG
Here are Cunha’s xG stats (courtesy of Understat) for his league performances over the years.
| Season | xG (league) | Goals (league) | xG performance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018/19 | 3.92 | 2 | -1.92 |
| 2019/20 | 5.40 | 5 | -0.4 |
| 2020/21 | 8.20 | 7 | -1.2 |
| 2021/22 | 7.48 | 6 | -1.48 |
| 2022/23 | 3.46 | 2 | -1.46 |
| 2023/24 | 10.23 | 12 | +1.77 |
The stats here paint a picture of a forward a little lower than average when it comes to converting chances but not much below. Cunha often seems better at converting the harder chances rather than the easier ones. He has a lot of low xG goals, including several from outside the box but is not overly clinical inside the penalty area.
Cunha’s Assists
Finally, we move on to looking at how Cunha is at setting up chances for other players. For this, we will look at his actual assists and expected assists. The reason for adding the latter is that it shows if teammates are especially clinical or wasteful at finishing the opportunities he creates. Again, the data come courtest of Understat.
| Season | League Assists | League Expected Assists |
|---|---|---|
| 2018/19 | 0 | 0.90 |
| 2019/20 | 1 | 1.52 |
| 2020/21 | 4 | 4.30 |
| 2021/22 | 5 | 3.01 |
| 2022/23 | 2 | 1.54 |
| 2023/24 | 7 | 3.92 |
So, while Cunha does chip in with some assists, this could be an area for improvement. His expected assists per 90 minutes across these six league seasons work out to be 0.17, a respectable rate but top players in a similar role would normally be 0.20 or greater. There are signs that Cunha is becoming better as a provider though and given he is only 25, continued improvements are likely as he enters his prime years.