Norwich City boss Liam Manning says that Kenny McLean is day-to-day in terms of his chances of featuring this weekend against Ipswich Town.
The City skipper has been managing a back problem over the past few weeks and was replaced in a bit of discomfort during the defeat to West Brom.
"Not too bad today. It's something that's been irritating him for a little while, we settle it down and it flares back up again," Manning explained.
"He's so important to our team so we want to manage it well. I won't make any guarantees but we're hopeful for Sunday."
Lucien Mahovo returned after seven months on the sidelines and Manning is hoping that there will be more players returning to refresh his squad during the international break.
"We'll have to see (if Mahovo starts), it's still really early in terms of exposure to game minutes. He trained this morning, when you look at the journey he's had, the time he's spent out, it's been a reminder of how much he just loves football.
"(Ben Chrisene and Mathias Kvistgaarden) are going well, the international break is coming at a fairly good time. In the next two to four weeks, we hope that we can have three, maybe four, back in."
City were unfortunate to be on the wrong side of a 1-0 scoreline against the Baggies on Wednesday evening.
But Manning believes that the performance was the best one that we've seen from City at home this season.
"We're quite clear we need to win some games. It's in my job to understand how we do that for a sustained period of time. If you play that game numerous time, you win it. They had one shot on goal and we had good chances to score," he explained.
"At Coventry we get a point but are back to the walls defending for the whole game, last night we looked more like a team. We had people step up and take responsibility, there were much more encouraging signs.
"Nobody wants to be in this position but we're also realistic with where we're at. When the final whistle goes and the whole team run to celebrate with their goalkeeper, you can see who had the biggest influence. If we can carry on our performance from last night, we'll win more matches than we lose.
"The boos were more for the result than the performance I would hope last night. It's the most dominant we've been, it's something the lads should take confidence. The fans want to see that as well as win, we haven't done that yet and I get it. It's a fantastic opportunity at the weekend."
With Ipswich to come at the weekend, Manning says he's made sure that his squad are clear on the importance of the fixture to the City supporters.
"It would mean everything to win there. Results and form go out the window, it's a unique game. We've had chats with the lads because of so many new players and foreign players, we've educated them. We need to show emotion and passion but we also need to show control, we're going there to give the fans something to get behind.
"We'll do our work on their group, they have depth and quality. We'll do our gameplan like we normally do. We've done extra on the importance of the game and the magnitude but the on the pitch process remains the same."