Manchester United's teamsheet the big attraction as Paul Pogba and Alexis Sanchez travel to Bournemouth

Will the pair be left out after Jose Mourinho's displeasure with the defeat to West Bromwich?

Paul Pogba and Alexis Sanchez are in the firing line after Sunday's defeat (Getty)

Paul Pogba has to redeem himself on Wednesday night if he wants to be sure of playing in Manchester United’s FA Cup semi-final on Saturday, but the midfielder’s worry will be whether he is given a chance to redeem himself at all.

Pogba and Alexis Sanchez are two of the players in Jose Mourinho’s firing line after the limp defeat to West Bromwich Albion which handed Manchester City the title and neither are guaranteed minutes against Bournemouth at the Vitality.

Jesse Lingard and Marcus Rashford, who started the defeat on United’s bench, are expected to come into the side and as a damp and downbeat Mourinho suggested on Sunday evening, they may stay there for Saturday.

“Rotating is not the right word,” the United manager said after the defeat to West Bromwich. “If I play a player against Bournemouth and the player is phenomenal, he plays the semi-final. So is not rotating.

“Some of the guys that played today don’t have a place in that team,” he added, referring his team for the Cup semi-final. “They don’t have a place in that team.”

Mourinho’s post-match press conference on Sunday has added a layer of intrigue to rearranged midweek game that would otherwise have lacked much to be excited about. United’s teamsheet will demand much pre-match attention and if his players perform like they did on Sunday, it may well be the only highlight of the evening too.

United were at their ponderous, pedestrian worst against West Bromwich, constantly getting in each other’s way and stifling their own attacks. Pep Guardiola chose to play golf rather than watch the game and until Jay Rodriguez’s goal, he seemed to have had the right idea.

Mourinho called his players “masters of complicated football” after the final whistle but it was not as though United’s task was too difficult. Their opponents were already all-but-relegated and had failed to win away in the league since August, yet United were the ones lacking in guile or invention.

​Pogba was among the most ineffective, though even with a yellow card to his name, he did not warrant to be substituted as early as he was. His 58th-minute withdrawal meant that he has played the full 90 in just four of United’s last nine league games.

Mourinho did not even look at the midfielder as he left the pitch on Sunday and this ruthlessness was seen again in that post-match press conference with the warning that several players had lost their Wembley places.

It spoke of a manager who still has something he has to cling on to, despite United’s Premier League season being seemingly done.

Ever since City edged ahead in mid-September, Mourinho has insisted his side are the best of the rest. Though a questionable claim, the league table has always been on his side, with United only slipping out of second briefly in late December.

The table makes for ominous reading at the moment though, with a rampant Liverpool now just trailing by one point. This trip to Bournemouth is United’s game in hand and a chance to open up a more comfortable four-point gap.

Another surprise result though, and United’s long-held grip on second would suddenly look loose. Mourinho will not want to lose his best argument against City’s success. If he does, certain players may be ones who pay for it.