Scholes Warns Carrick on Cunha’s Role as United's No 9 Problem Grows
Paul Scholes has sounded the alarm for Michael Carrick, warning that Manchester United’s attack has a glaring issue – and that Matheus Cunha sits right at the heart of it.
United laboured to a drab draw with Everton on Sunday, a game littered with underwhelming displays. Even in that context, Cunha stood out for the wrong reasons. His afternoon became a reel of missteps: overhit passes, clumsy first touches, poor movement and big chances spurned. Almost everything that could go wrong, did.
The bigger concern for Carrick is that, yet again, Cunha looked like a player without a defined role.
A talent without a position
Last season, Carrick found a workable formula by using Cunha predominantly off the left. He thrived there, driving inside, linking play, playing with the swagger and conviction that made his first campaign at Old Trafford so encouraging.
This year, the picture is very different.
Marcus Rashford’s return has locked down that left flank. Carrick clearly wants his England forward operating from wide, which has forced Cunha into unfamiliar territory. He has been shunted into the middle, often asked to lead the line as a sort of false nine. At other moments, Bruno Fernandes has stepped into that role, with Cunha dropping back into the No 10 position.
The result? A Brazilian forward who looks stripped of clarity and short on belief. The sharpness and invention that defined his debut season have been replaced by hesitation and uncertainty. Carrick can point to early-season rust and fitness still building, but Scholes sees something more structural.
Scholes: ‘I don’t really know what Cunha is’
Speaking on The Good, The Bad and The Football podcast, Scholes didn’t dance around the issue.
"It's very difficult to watch a Man United team without a centre forward," he said.
"Now, what Cunha is, I don't really know what Cunha is, what is he a number 10 or a wide player.
"But he's definitely not a number nine. And watching the United team without a number nine, it's a struggle."
That last line cuts to the core of Carrick’s problem. United are trying to function without a natural, nailed-on No 9. Cunha’s qualities lie in drifting, combining, arriving into spaces. He is being asked to occupy defenders, pin centre-backs, and finish moves as the main reference point. Scholes, like many watching, doesn’t see that as his game.
Sesko makes his case
The contrast when Benjamin Sesko entered the fray at the Hill Dickinson Stadium was stark. United suddenly had a focal point.
The Slovenian offered what Scholes had been calling for: a proper centre forward’s presence. He led the line, gave United a target, and crucially, he scored. Rising highest, Sesko powered in a superb Luke Shaw cross to restore United’s lead and briefly tilt the contest back in their favour.
It should have been the decisive moment. Instead, Ainsley Maitland-Niles ripped up the script in stoppage time with a stunning strike that silenced the away end and denied United the win.
The late blow only sharpened the focus on Carrick’s attacking puzzle. When United looked most coherent, Sesko was on the pitch. When they looked most muddled, Cunha was marooned between roles.
A selection call that can’t be dodged
Cunha is not short of talent. He has already shown Old Trafford what he can do when used in a position that suits him. But right now, he looks like a square peg in a round hole, and Scholes has made it clear that United can’t keep pretending the issue doesn’t exist.
Carrick now walks into a crucial decision before Thursday’s Champions League opener against Sabah. Does he stick with Cunha as an improvised nine in hope that form and understanding suddenly click, or does he hand the keys of the attack to Sesko and build around a more traditional centre forward?
One way or another, the next team sheet will say a lot about how Carrick really sees Cunha – and how he plans to solve United’s growing No 9 problem.
