Town boss Kieran McKenna says there will be a lot of late fitness calls ahead of Saturday’s game at Everton with the squad still hit by injury as well as suspension.
Leif Davis and Ben Johnson are unavailable due to their red cards, while Wes Burns (ACL), Chieo Ogbene (achilles), Jaden Philogene (MCL) and Aro Muric (shoulder) are all out for the season.
Conor Townsend (hamstring), Axel Tuanzebe (hamstring), Nathan Broadhead (thigh), Sammie Szmodics (ankle) and Kalvin Phillips (achilles) also all missed last week’s match at Newcastle, while Omari Hutchinson (hamstring) and Jens Cajuste (managing ongoing issue) were on the bench but would only have been used in desperation.
"To be honest, I'm not going to go through so many individually again, but last week we said we were in a really difficult spot and it's not very dissimilar,” McKenna said.
"There are going to be quite a lot of late calls, genuinely, because we've got quite a few players who are going to be close for this week, if not this week then a really good chance for next week.
"I think certainly by two games’ time we'll be much closer to where we'd want to be. This one's going to be really tight. We've got quite a few players who are close and we're going to make a late judgement call on them all.”
McKenna admits the lack of players is impacting how he goes into games rather than any wider aims: "At the moment, the approach is dictated by availability.
Last week, this week, we've had 13, 14 senior players available in training. So, approach is always dictated a little bit by availability.
"I think our mindset has been to get as many points to the end of season. I still think it has to be that. Try and pick up as many points as we can. Try and perform as well as we can.
"The option to look at one or two different relationships or partnerships or different positional things on the pitch, it would be nice to be at that point, but to be at that point we need to be closer to availability, to be honest, and having players back and ready.
"Then we can maybe look at one or two pairings or relationships or little tweaks that we'd like to have a look at in the last few games. To be honest, we're not there at the moment.
"Our position at the moment is find a way to go to Goodison and compete. We're coming off three really, really difficult games.
"We've got to find a way to go there and get a side and a squad together to go there and compete tomorrow.
"The overriding goal still has to be in terms of the games to pick up points and perform as well as we can.”