Jair Cunha - A Genuine Option?

Just 3 starts so far in his debut season - but does he deserve more and will he get further opportunities?

It’s been a very slow start to Jair Cunha’s Forest career and he’s had little opportunity to show his abilities on the field. When he arrived in the summer he was the one I felt most excited to see in a Forest shirt out of the 3 Botafogo buys - but for a variety of reasons we’ve just not seen him in the lineup.

Firstly, he was left out of the Europa League squad, essentially so that Willy Boly could be a part of the 22 - Boly only made the one European appearance, an injury time sub away at Betis in September. At the time although disappointed with the club’s decision, it was at least understandable.

However, in hindsight it was clearly the wrong call, and Jair Cunha has suffered in a similar way that Andrew Omobamidele did when he joined the club from Norwich in 2023 - when he was signed on deadline day but didn’t make his debut until the following January.

Jair Cunha’s patience was finally rewarded on Thursday night, with his first Europa League appearance against Fenerbahce. He did give away a penalty at the start of the second half, that although ‘soft’ was probably the right call, but otherwise I felt he performed really well and showed why he was so highly rated in Brazil.

Playing as the right centre back in a back 4 (his preferred position), Jair Cunha was calm throughout the game against Fenerbahce, and did showed some great examples of defending that you wouldn’t always expect from someone of his age (20) and lack of high level experience (just 6 months in the Brazilian top flight and a Club World Cup).

The clip below shows a moment from the game on Thursday that makes me really optimistic about Jair Cunha’s future & potential, even if it was actually Fenerbahce’s first goal. With his partner Morato jumping high and getting bypassed easily, Jair Cunha is really left on a bit of an island at the back, facing a 2 v 1.