Wolves striker Matheus Cunha has been banned for two games and fined £80,000 after the full-time incident against Ipswich.
Cunha got into an altercation with a member of Ipswich staff after the end of a Premier League match on December 14 and the FA charged the Brazil international with “inappropriate behaviour”.
The incident came after Jack Taylor scored for Ipswich, who are also fighting for Premier League survival, in Gary O’Neill’s final game before being sacked as Wolves boss.
Wolves have won four of their 19 matches and are 17th in the Premier League.
Analysis: Cunha’s ban is a big blow for Wolves
Cunha has been a shining light for Wolves this season, so it’s almost impossible to overstate how damaging his absence could be to the club’s Premier League survival hopes, with his eight goals only telling part of the tale.
It was Cunha’s dramatic late-game score at Brighton that ended a run of five straight defeats, and it was Cunha’s long-range strike that secured their first win of the campaign against Southampton, having already provided an assist for the game’s opening goal.
And it was Cunha’s two glorious goals away to Fulham that helped Wolves to what remains their only Premier League win of the season.His side have struggled at the other end of the pitch but are essentially eighth thanks to Cunha top scorers.
O’Neill liked to talk about the tactical work that helped make Cunha a better player, but the truth is that the Brazilian remains a touch-and-go player, a madman who can have moments of magic that come not from training but from his own. from imagination to the ground.
“I’m Brazilian and I’m a very emotional guy,” he said Sky Sports in the summer. Now that emotion has got the better of him and won’t let him out of some of his club’s most important matches.
There are options for the new head coach Vitor Pereira. Goncalo Guedes has hinted at the ability to play a bigger role, while Hee-Chan Hwang is still hoping to recapture his form from last season, but there is no one capable of what Cunha is capable of. In or out of wolves.
Adam Bate
