Charlie Wyke could return for Sunderland's final day trip to Southend United - but Aiden McGeady is set to be miss out again.
The Black Cats are already guaranteed a place in the play-offs but first they must round off their League One campaign with a trip to face the relegation-threatened Shrimpers at Roots Hall on Saturday.
And the outcome of that game, in conjunction with the results of Portsmouth's home game against Accrington Stanley and Charlton Athletic's home game against Rochdale, will decide whether Sunderland finish third, fourth, or fifth in the table and therefore determine who they will face in the play-off semi-finals and whether they will play at home in the first or the second leg.
Several members of Jack Ross' squad are nursing knocks following the midweek defeat at Fleetwood Town and will be assessed prior to the weekend, but Wyke will be available after recovering from the dead leg that saw him miss Tuesday's game.
However McGeady , who has been playing with a broken bone in his foot in recent weeks, also missed the Fleetwood game and is likely to be given more time to rest ahead of the play-offs.
Ross said: "Charlie trained today so should be back available.
"Aiden is likely to miss out again. We looked at this week as an opportunity to give him an extended rest.
"We're hoping that by the time the first play-off game comes around he will have had a much longer rest than he has had of late, and that will benefit him.
"We've got two or three fresh injuries from Tuesday and we will look at them over the course of the next 24 hours and see whether they travel.
"But it will still be a strong squad that travels, and a strong team that plays."
Jack Ross explains why he will not make wholesale changes at Southend United that managers can make at this stage of the season to prevent clubs fielding weakened teams which could have an impact on the competition for promotion, relegation, or play-off places.
And, aside from Wyke's inclusion and players ruled out through injury, Ross intends to take broadly the same squad to Essex as travelled to Fleetwood.
But he is preparing to make changes to his starting XI, which could see the likes of Adam Matthews , Jimmy Dunne , Denver Hume , George Honeyman , and Grant Leadbitter - all of whom were on the bench at Fleetwood - come into the side.
He said: "You have to use a minimum of ten of the outfielders that were on the teamsheet in the previous game, so apart from the ones that are fitness doubts I think the squad will be by and large the same.
"We are treating it as a normal game in terms of the squad, although we might make some changes to the team but that will just be to give it some freshness because some of those players have played a lot of games."
Ross also hinted that he could rest Lee Cattermole at Southend, partly because Leadbitter needs match practice after playing just one minute as a substitute in the last four games and partly because Cattermole has played so much football recently
Whether Cattermole is involved or not at Southend, he no longer needs to worry about missing the play-offs through suspension for an accumulation of yellow cards over the course of the campaign.
If a player receives 15 bookings up to and including the last game of the regular season, he would be hit with a three-game ban - and if his team is involved in the play-offs, it would rule him out of both legs of the semi-final and, should his team get there, the final.
But Cattermole's 13 league bookings means he will not trigger a ban even if he collects another caution at Southend.
Bookings picked up in the play-off games themselves do not count towards the 15-card total.
Jack Ross explains why he will not make wholesale changes at Southend United
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