Roy Hodgson fears Crystal Palace will be unable to put a competitive side out against Arsenal on Saturday as they battle a crippling injury crisis.
The Eagles boss is missing up to 11 senior players through injury and suspension this weekend and, while he wants four or five new signings this month, none appear to be close to arriving this week to ease Hodgson's troubles.
The Crystal Palace manager is desperate to add new faces to his squad and has demanded that the club push for more than "loans and free transfers", as they have largely done during his time at Selhurst Park.
Palace have appealed the red card shown to captain Luka Milivojevic against Derby on Sunday in an attempt to ease the burden on Hodgson's thin squad.
The former England manager said: “How many injury problems from bona fide first-team players do you need before someone says, ‘in actual fact it’s very difficult for you to field a team at any point in time’?
“Counting those two [Meyer and Riedewald] now, that makes 11. How many players are we going to need in our squad to put out what we would think is an equally valid 11 in games like this?
“I’ve never known a situation where so many players are injured, so many are perhaps long-term injuries. We lost [Mamadou] Sakho in the Norwich game and on Sunday we lost Meyer and Riedewald who were covering for other places.”
Palace are keen on bringing Chelsea striker Michy Batshuayi back to the club on loan - just as they did in January last season - but the Blues are waiting to add another forward before sanctioning the Belgian's departure. The Eagles also remain keen on CSKA Moscow striker Fedor Chalov, for whom they saw a £23million offer rejected over the summer.
Chelsea are also keeping an eye on Chalov, 21, who has six goals in all competitions so far this season.
