Sunderland will be without Aiden McGeady when they travel to Fulham on Friday evening.
Speaking at his pre-match press conference, Chris Coleman revealed the Republic of Ireland international has been playing with injections for the last six weeks.
The Welshman does hope to have Lamine Kone and Josh Maja available, though, with Billy Jones’ chances of featuring at Craven Cottage rated as 50.50, but Bryan Oviedo is expected to miss out.
And Coleman also talked about the prospect of some of the club’s youth players featuring between now and the end of the campaign.
“Maja has been complaining this week with a slight problem, but he’s going to train today and he should be alright.
“McGeady has been playing with injections in his heel for six weeks so he won’t be available for tomorrow.”
He continued: “Lamine has trained this week, and has done okay, so he should be okay, but Billy Jones is 50/50 after last week.
“Bryan has had some work done to his hamstring and lower back so he won’t be available this week, but he should be available for a full week of training next week.
“We have to be careful [with young players], for them, that we don’t put them in too early.
“Maja's had game time, Asoro's had game time, Robson's had game time, and even Embleton's had game time, he played away to Wolves and it was too soon really, but it was needs must and he did okay.
“We’ve still got to go with a team that has the best chance of doing something tomorrow night, and we have to protect the young players as well because if you put them in too early it can be detrimental.
“It’s their future as well and make no mistake, we’re coming up against one of the best teams tomorrow and they are playing for everything, so it doesn’t come much tougher and we have to play the strongest team we can.”