How Matheus Nunes went from Manchester City headache to Enzo Maresca’s right-back solution | OneFootball

After a thumping 5-0 victory over Sporting Lisbon in February 2022, now-departed Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola described opposing player Matheus Nunes as ‘one of the best players in the world today’.

Nineteen months later – in September 2023 – having signed Nunes from his subsequent club Wolves that summer, Guardiola added: “Maybe I over-exaggerated a little bit. He’s not.”

A further 18 months down the line in April 2025, the Catalan announced his desire to turn the natural midfielder into a right-back, revealing that Nunes ‘wasn’t clever enough’ to feature in the engine room and ‘lacked composure’.

Fast forward to July 2026 and Guardiola’s pet project has been a roaring success. Only Erling Haaland made more City starts last season than Nunes’ 45, with the 27-year-old earning widespread praise for his development on the right of the Blues’ defence – his manager even admitted that his charge is ‘becoming one of the best right-backs in the world’.

That statement would have baffled onlookers in the first year-and-a-half at the Etihad Stadium, but perhaps not now. In this article, City Xtra detail how Nunes has flipped his City fortune on its head, and has earned the right to go into this new era of the club as the first-choice in his adoptive position.

The summer immediately following Manchester City‘s treble success of 2023 saw a deliberate effort in the club’s transfer strategy to sign players comfortable with carrying the ball, a ploy designed to combat and bulldoze through the increasing rise of man-to-man systems in the Premier League.

Stylish ball-players Aymeric Laporte, Ilkay Gundogan and Riyad Mahrez departed as Josko Gvardiol, Mateo Kovacic and Jeremy Doku came in; with the exception of the former, perhaps not typical Guardiola possession players, but arrivals designed to offer a new physical dimension and a refresh to a squad which had already won it all.

Another midfield signing was needed, though, as Kalvin Phillips had definitively failed to become the Rodri supplementary which he had been bought to be the summer before. In keeping with the aforementioned transfer strategy, City were keen on snapping up Declan Rice from West Ham United; not for the first time though, the Blues were unwilling to bid above their valuation for a player, and he instead decided on a move to Arsenal worth more than £100 million.

City were linked with a number of alternative midfield names as the days of the transfer window ticked down, including the likes of Gabri Viega, Lucas Paqueta and Eberechi Eze. Eventually though, on transfer deadline day, Nunes was unveiled as Guardiola’s final signing of the summer, having caught the Catalan’s eye in that meeting with Sporting the prior year.

The Portuguese was thrown in for a few early appearances, playing either in a double pivot or as one of the two advanced midfielders in the 3-2-4-1 treble-winning system. However, a poor performance on his return to Wolves, partly influenced by a Molineux Stadium crowd outraged at their former player for having left the club after just one season, saw him hooked at half-time and not often trusted to start by Guardiola for the rest of 2023.

That opening Etihad Stadium campaign wasn’t without its positives for Nunes – he starred in City’s winning run in the shorter, old FIFA Club World Cup format, and had a brief spell as first choice on the left wing – but he made just 14 starts in all, and his manager clearly struggled to find a place for a player just as capable of turning a man, gliding past three opponents and creating something out of nothing as he was miscontrolling a pass, flying into a failed challenge and putting the other team clean through.

The first half of the 2024-25 season was again a jumble for the man born in Rio de Janeiro, as a collapse in City’s form and much of the squad’s fitness meant he was shifted around a multitude of roles: from benchwarmer, back to the left wing, and for one ill-fated and error-strewn Manchester derby defeat, into left-back. The only constant was Guardiola’s unwillingness to revert him to the engine room.

But on 11th January 2025, in an 8-0 FA Cup hammering of Salford City, the Catalan enacted the positional switch which would finally ignite Nunes’ Manchester City career, starting the natural box-to-box central midfielder at right-back.

Whilst not a change which would necessarily have been obvious to every coach, it makes so much sense in retrospect. Guardiola has made clear that Nunes lacks the nuance to control affairs from the middle of the pitch, but his industrious combination of pace, boundless energy and strength, coupled with the ability to whip in crosses and produce tricks to get himself out of trouble, meant he had all the assets to be moulded into what he has become.

It wasn’t a seamless transition, as right-back minutes towards the end of the 2024-25 campaign were still split between the Portuguese, Rico Lewis and Manuel Akanji. Further promising displays at last summer’s Club World Cup, though, laid the groundwork for what followed in the term just gone.

That unpredictable enigma was gone, replaced with arguably Manchester City’s most consistent and important performer of the season; to attribute defeats to just one player’s absence is one of the most lamentable follies of football fans, but the Blues were appalling in January defeats to Manchester United and Bodo/Glimt, both of which Nunes missed through illness.

His was a multi-pronged presence. Only Messieurs Haaland, Doku and Rayan Cherki bettered Nunes’ seven assists in the 2025-26 season as he frequently timed his bursts forward from the backline to perfection, teeing up teammates with a searing cutback or one of those trademarked looped wide delivery.

But you’re not going to start in Guardiola’s defence without actually being able to defend, and Nunes’ improvement in this area has perhaps been the most heartening aspect of his development. Prime Kyle Walker would have been proud of the way the right-back shut down Vinicius Jr. in December’s UEFA Champions League win at Real Madrid – and Leandro Trossard, Gabriel Martinelli and Eberechi Eze in turn were easily back-pocketed in the wins over Arsenal in the Carabao Cup final then the Etihad Stadium showdown in the Premier League – he even set up a goal in both games.

The key has been concentration. Nunes has always had the natural tools to become a quality player, but being unable to maintain a level across multiple games – and sometimes even throughout a 90 minutes – had been a barrier to true City stardom. Watching him closely last season, the concerted effort to continue being excellent week after week was evident, and reminiscent of the mindset required of some of the greats of the Guardiola era.

So, what next?

Guardiola, the man who went from seemingly regretting signing Nunes to crafting him into one of the world’s best in his newfound position, is gone.

Enzo Maresca is now in the hotseat and will have his own ideas on how best to utilise City’s squad. You’d think he’d appreciate the work done by both his predecessor and by Nunes himself to create the player City’s number 27 has become- and therefore want to keep him at right-back, but in what guise? Maresca has been known to dabble in lining up teams in a back five; the prospect of letting loose Nunes’ athletic gifts as a flying wing-back is a tantalising one.

Either way, it’s likely there will be some changing of the guard in that area of the pitch. Lewis fell badly out of favour in the latter days of Guardiola’s reign after being deemed not up to the physical level of the increasingly rough-and-tumble Premier League, playing just three times after that nightmare week of defeats at Old Trafford and in Bodo – he looks likely to depart this summer.

It has been suggested recently that Chelsea defender Malo Gusto is keen on a reunion with former coach Maresca in Manchester, although the London side’s current asking price could prove off-putting for City director of football Hugo Viana. Some fans have also speculated whether another Chelsea man, Josh Acheampong, or Feyenoord’s Givairo Read could be right-back incomings.

A strong case could be put forward, though, for Nunes to remain first-choice on the flank regardless of who is signed. As we’ve chronicled, his has been a journey of hard work, of adversity and often of shortcomings. But City fans ought to have been filled with pride watching the Portuguese this past year, seeing how far he has come, to the point where Guardiola’s world-beater tag doesn’t look out of place around his neck.

It’s sure to be a year of real upheaval in east Manchester as Maresca gets his reign underway. In times of such change, stability in key areas is key. Manchester City could do far worse at right-back than Matheus Nunes – their new Mr Consistent.