Swansea captain Garry Monk could find himself an absentee from the Swans final run in
Monk has been out of action since the end of February and was expected initially to miss just one game with that diagnosis stretched and stretched to two games, two weeks, a month and now what appears to potentially extend until the summer.
It is a big blow for the captain who has fought back after missing much of last season with a bad injury to be one of the front runners for this season's player of the season award.
"I'm not going to put a timescale on a return. Back injuries are complicated, it could be two weeks or it could be three months," club physio Richie Evans told the Evening Post
"I hope he'll be back before the end of the season, but we'll have to wait and see over the next couple of weeks.
"He's been out for five weeks now and he has missed a lot of football.
"He hasn't been able to do any kind of fitness work, but I'm definitely not ruling him out."
The player himself was keen to concentrate on events on the pitch though and was more than happy following the midweek results from both Carlisle and Doncaster “I think all the boys were keeping an eye on Tuesday’s games and they couldn’t have gone much better really. They were great results for us.
“At the start of the season I would have laughed if you had said Leeds and Nottingham Forest would be doing us a favour. But that’s exactly what happened.”
He continued, “We are above the 80-point mark and we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Obviously we still have a job to do but we know promotion is close.
“There’s no complacency though and, if anything, this focuses us even more. We know that a win on Saturday could be enough and we all know it’s in our hands.
“Whether or not we are promoted by other results doesn’t matter. I’m sure the majority of the players want it to happen as soon as possible.
“It doesn’t matter how we get it, automatic promotion is our main goal. After that we can think about winning the league.”
In a second blow, Ferrie Bodde could be another casualty for the rest of the season with Roberto Martinez saying "If Ferrie comes back, it will be for the last game of the season."