Marcelo Bielsa says Kalvin Phillips may have surgery on his troublesome shoulder after being ruled out until the new year with a hamstring injury.
Skipper Liam Cooper and Patrick Bamford have also suffered hamstring problems to leave Leeds reeling from a fresh injury crisis.
Bamford, who had just returned from 11 weeks out with an ankle injury, appeared to be hurt celebrating his late equaliser against Brentford on Sunday and Bielsa says he cannot put a timescale on their recoveries.
The Leeds boss admits Phillips may have an operation on his shoulder, which the England midfielder has been struggling with since last season, if he is going to be out for a long time.
Bielsa said: “I have not heard that information from the medical staff, but it’s common sense what you have mentioned.
“If the time he needs to recover from this injury exceeds the time he would needs to recover from his shoulder, then it makes sense.
“I don’t know how long it will take him to recover from his injury, so I can’t apply my common sense to this.”
Rodrigo will join the trio in missing Saturday’s game against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge with a heel problem, while Robin Koch has been ill this week.
Koch has recovered from his surgery and will resume full training this weekend.
Bielsa is philosophical about his new injury headache and played down the possibility of signing players next month because January is such a difficult window.
“With respect to signings, like I always say, any player that the club is in a position to bring in who is better than the players at our disposal, would be a possibility that would be welcome,” he said.
“But we all know the difficulties of the winter transfer market.
“It’s difficult to find players competing, who don’t have a place in their current team. Normally those who are competing have a space in their team.
“Then there’s the question of is it economically viable and for all these conditions to be met, is not simple.”
Leeds’ latest injury crisis could not have come at a worse time with Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool next up after Chelsea, but Bielsa refuses to feel sorry for himself.
“Of course we don’t expect to recover four players and then have four new injuries,” he said.
“But I’m always optimistic and I always work so that the difficulties hurt us as little as possible.”
