Manchester United 4-2 Brighton (Cunha 24′, Casemiro 34′, Mbeumo 61′, 90+6’ | Welbeck 74′, Kostoulas 90+2′)
OLD TRAFFORD — Other than Bruno Fernandes, one of the more challenging tasks in football is to name the second most successful Manchester United signing of the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era.
All sorts of other names are bandied about. The lack of a clear winner typifies the embarrassment United’s scattergun transfer market approach has become.
Close to £2bn has been largely wasted on ill-fitting, overpaid stars unable to stop the rot. Until, it seems, this season.
Ineos have got a lot wrong since Sir Jim Ratcliffe decided to invest in his boyhood club. One area they seem to excel is in the transfer market, and in Matheus Cunha, the new overlords have found the poster boy for their revolutionised ethos.
Matheus takes matters into his own hands
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) October 25, 2025
Our no.10 is off the mark for the Redspic.twitter.com/iyEcW0onW3
Ratcliffe did not hold back in telling United what he thought of their pathetic transfer record as soon as he walked through the door. He could not believe the waste, the lack of a coherent strategy for a supposed behemoth of the world game.
So he and his new-look hierarchy immediately set about working on a winning formula to identify younger, hungrier transfer targets who aren’t going to command upwards of £300,000-a-week and ultimately flatter to deceive.
Not necessarily the biggest names, but players who show enough desire to help awaken United from their perennial slumber. Cunha, Ruben Amorim’s Brazilian maverick, is exactly what the club has needed for a long, long time.
“It’s having the arrogance to say, ‘Give me the ball, I want to play, I want to make things’,” Fernandes began to eulogise over Cunha’s impact in an interview with The i Paper this week.
“Sometimes it won’t be good for people. I’ve been through that. But we want this Cunha. We want you to take risks, to create.”
There is a huge difference between arrogance and overconfidence. Eric Cantona oozed the former – backing up the swagger with match-defining contributions, week on week. Cunha is starting to follow suit.
Cunha finally got the reward his all-action performances have deserved against Brighton on Saturday, arrowing a superb first goal for the club into the bottom corner to set United on their way to their third successive win, a success that takes them, having been in full-blown crisis for the best part of a year, above champions Liverpool and into the top four. Heights Amorim has never known on these shores.
Brighton boss Fabian Hurzeler perhaps summed up the difference between the United of last season and this one best after watching his side suffer a first Old Trafford loss in four visits.
“They’re much more intense, much more compact playing forward and have more individual quality,” he said. “The money was well invested.”
There were plenty of doubts when much of that money was splurged on Cunha. Were there temperament issues? Stats suggest the Brazilian spent more time walking than any other player last season. Could he make the step up from fighting relegation to dragging United forward?
Everything we were told is a lie. Figures at United have been taken aback by how relentlessly positive Cunha is. The work ethic? He returned early from international duty with Brazil, having flown back from Japan, just to be in optimum shape for the trip to Liverpool.
The celebrations when he broke his United duck in the first half at Old Trafford spoke of a unit who were just as happy as the man himself that he is off the mark.
“We try to work on the connection in the training with everyone,” Bryan Mbeumo said after his double against Brighton continued his impressive start to life in Manchester. “Obviously, we try to grow the link-ups and we try to replicate it in games.
“I think he (Cunha) took some pressure off his shoulders today with the goal. He was waiting for it. We were waiting for it for him as well.”
It had been coming. Patrice Evra summarised Cunha’s seamless assimilation to life in the fast lane perfectly this week. While the goals haven’t flowed, defenders leave the pitch, having faced Cunha, looking traumatised.
United have not possessed anyone who could do that for many years. Marcus Rashford had his moments. Anthony Martial when he could be bothered. Cunha revels in bringing the fire and relentlessly running – Amorim’s top requirement – week after week.
That infectious smile is only going to get wider. Up and running in the goalscoring department, Cunha made eight defensive contributions against Brighton in a breathless display of desire long absent from modern-day United teams.
More goals will follow, creeping him up that leaderboard of post-Ferguson arrivals. Cunha is arguably into the top 10 already, such is the paucity of success stories. Ineos are far from perfect, but in the transfer market, they seem to recognise potential revolutionary figures when they see one.
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