Matheus Cunha to miss rest of the season with ‘significant’ injury in blow to Wolves

Wolves star Matheus Cunha has reportedly been ruled out for the rest of the season with a 'significant' hamstring injury.

The Brazilian has enjoyed an excellent season at Molineux after making his move from Atletico Madrid permanent in the summer.

Cunha has scored 11 goals in 28 appearances across all competitions for Wolves, including a hat-trick in their 4-2 win away at Chelsea.

However, the striker played just 20 minutes against Brentford on Saturday before going off injured with a hamstring problem.

Sky Sports have now reported that he is ruled out for the rest of the season as a result in what is a huge blow to the Wolves attack.

Boss Gary O'Neil revealed after their 2-0 defeat against Brentford that Cunha said his hamstring 'doesn't feel too bad now'.

But the manager has now issued a further update on the striker, although has not predicted a return date.

"It’s a fairly significant injury to his hamstring," said O'Neil. "There’s no timeline on it.

"I’ve spoken to Matheus a lot and he just wants to keep pushing to get back as soon as he can. He’s started working on it already, so we’re just going to monitor it week by week, day by day, see how far he can come and how quickly we can get him back.

"He’s keen to get back out there as soon as possible. It’s obviously a big blow to us, to the team and Matheus because of the work he’s been doing – the form he was in was exceptional. These things happen, every team suffers injuries.

"Channy [Hwang Hee-chan] was gone for over a month with the Asian Cup and we managed to keep ploughing on and we need to do the same without Matheus.”

Cunha first joined Wolves last January on loan from Atletico Madrid and scored just two goals in his first 20 appearances for the club.

His form has shown drastic improvement since then, with his tally of 11 making him their joint top scorer alongside Hwang.

Wolves' hopes of securing European football could now be affected by the absence of Cunha.

The Black Country side currently sit 11th in the Premier League table, but they are just four points off seventh place and what could possibly be a spot in next season's Europa Conference League.

Next up is a tough trip to Tottenham before they look to avoid a third consecutive home defeat when they welcome Sheffield United to Molineux.