LONDON – Matheus Cunha is the kind of character Manchester United need to drag them out of a poor start to the season, and he believes it can still end up being even better than last season when they finished third in the Premier League.
Cunha scored the late equalizer at Fulham on Sunday but after gaining just five points from their opening five games, nobody can deny it has been a poor start to the league campaign for Michael Carrick’s side.
But if you speak to Cunha, he isn’t overly concerned.
Man United believe they can recover from slow start
The Brazilian striker pointed to a slow start to last season under former manager Ruben Amorim and how United ended up finishing third after Carrick took charge and they got their act together.
“To be honest, that will come. Last season was my first season here, and then maybe it was more crazy than this one,” Cunha told Pro Soccer Talk. “There was a lot of noise around us, a season without Champions League, and now we’re in and we won our first game in the Champions League and maybe people were saying ‘Oh, United will go to the Championship’ or something like this. And then at the end of the day, we finished third, you know? I feel like inside of us, we still have a lot of trust, we know what we do, all the belief is inside. I think it’s like only the beginning. We know we need to improve earlier because last season we improved later, and then we finished third. So, imagine if we improve earlier this season? Something good can come.”
But it has taken a while for something good to come for United so far this season.
They’ve started the season sluggishly and started slowly at Fulham on Sunday. There has been no real patterns of play, no clear idea about what they want to do and they’re playing like a team of individuals rather than a team.
But when they went 1-0 down in the second half at Fulham they cranked things up several gears and found a way to get something from the game.
“I don’t feel like it was a bad performance. I feel like we created a lot of things. Maybe if we score more goals, everything could be easier, and then we finish with three points, everyone is happy,” Cunha said. “But that’s part of the game. We were not very lucky in the end to finish the actions and then I feel like we lost maybe 20 minutes of the control of the game, and they enjoyed that. Then they scored a goal at that moment but I feel like after this we played very well with a lot of character, a lot of energy. And I really think this is the way that we can keep going from the beginning, you know.”
How can United play with more intensity to start games ahead of pivotal October?
Cunha tells it how it is. United were much better after Fulham’s goal.
But how do they replicate how they played in that final 20 minutes across an entire game?
“It’s hard because in the beginning we try to feel calmer, to do things with good decisions. But in the end we feel like we need to do it and then we just do it,” Cunha explained. “But I feel like this is part of Manchester United. I feel like this kind of energy to do it, a little bit crazy moments, is kind of the spirit of the team and then we do well. But of course we need to try to improve, to have this energy, these kinds of crazy moments. At the same time, we need to have the other part, to have a little bit more calm in the decisions. And then I think if we mix these two things, we improve much more.”
Cunha and United must now stew on this slow start for three weeks during the long international break and figure out how they can improve. And fast.
They are next in action when they face Spurs at Old Trafford on October 10 before a tough run of games over a two-week period against Atletico Madrid, Leeds, Como, Bournemouth and Chelsea in the league and Champions League.
Those will be tough, physical games and so far this season United haven’t been able to match the intensity of their opponents.
But after salvaging a draw late on at Fulham, could that give them a boost heading into the break and help them reset?
“For me it’s hard. I’m so anxious to play the next one and then we have a big break now,” Cunha explained. “Of course, when you don’t win you feel this kind of feeling to let’s play the next one to win and feel everything is good. But yeah, maybe it’s the moment to be calm, to put the ideas in the right way, to come back. And then of course that could be a big month. I hope this kind of things will be like everything exciting and then we can win more things, and everyone will be calm and show how we work for the shirt.”
