Ian Evatt fears Ricardo Almeida Santos may miss the remainder of the season after counting out at least three big players for the visit of Sheffield Wednesday.
Santos, Kyle Dempsey and top scorer Dapo Afolayan all picked up hamstring injuries in Tuesday night’s 1-1 draw with Portsmouth.
The trio have been ruled out of Saturday’s game against the Owls and with just five fixtures to go, defensive leader and club captain Santos might not figure again before the end of the campaign.
“Dapo, Demps and Rico will all be missing,” confirmed Evatt.
“We feel like Dapo and Demps have a chance of playing in some of the remaining fixtures – Rico probably not.
“We have had them scanned and will have the reports back at some point later today and will make a decision from then on.
“Anybody would miss Rico. He’s a fantastic player.
“We will hope and have our fingers crossed that he can make it back but we don’t to take any risks with him.
“He’s a hugely important player for us and he’s been outstanding all season.”
Wanderers will find themselves stretched for the game against fifth-placed Wednesday with a number of other fitness issues for Evatt to address.
But the Wanderers’ boss will rally his troops for another major effort as they look to move into the top 10 before the end of a productive season.
“We have one or two others who are carrying knocks and some illness as well, so it’s back to November-December,” added Evatt – who faced a crippling injury list in a costly mid-winter run which left the Whites playing catch-up in their current sequence of just three losses in 17 league games since mid-January.
“It’s not ideal but it is what it is and we have to get on with it and be as competitive as we can on Saturday.
“This is probably as bad as I can remember being in football the amount of injuries we’ve had in one year.
“But we can’t feel sorry for ourselves. It’s a big game on Saturday against a team that’s going really well with a big fan base and a big support coming here.
“But we want to cause them problems and try and get the win.”