Jose Mourinho has hinted that Pogba and Sanchez might lose their places in Saturday’s FA Cup semi-final against Tottenham as the manager would make changes against Bournemouth on Wednesday.
The selection in the semi-final will not be based on a player’s salary, said Mourinho
The high-profile duo failed to impress as United were defeated by the bottom-placed club West Bromwich Albion. The manager has called his attacking players “masters of complication” and insisted that he would not be rotating, rather would be looking for better options for Sunday’s game.
“Rotating is not the right word. If I play a player against Bournemouth and the player is phenomenal, he plays the semi-final,” said the Portuguese in a pre-match press conference. “So it’s not rotating because rotating looks like a player that plays against Bournemouth is to give a rest to somebody that is going to play against Spurs in the semi-final.
“So the word is not rotation, the word is an opportunity for some people to play and to try to get a place in the team for Spurs. And some of the guys that played on Sunday, they don’t have a place in that team.”
Pogba returned to United in 2016 for a record £89.5 million and Sanchez is League’s highest-paid player with around £350,000 per week.
When questioned about Pogba’s disappointing performance, Mourinho said, “It was not just him, and he had a yellow card so he was in a more difficult position than others. But in terms of the way he played he was not worse than some of the players who were on the pitch for 90 minutes.”
United’s loss gave City the League title while the Red Devils still need five points from five matches to book their place in next season’s Champions League.