Lee Johnson admits he is having to assess Sunderland's injury situation on a day-by-day basis in the build-up to this weekend's game against Portsmouth.
The Black Cats boss says he is unable to pick a team - or even a shape - 48 hours ahead of Pompey's visit to the Stadium of Light such is the shifting landscape in terms of his squad.
Sunderland have had a series of minor injuries in training this week which Johnson insists are not a serious concern, but he will have calls to make over the fitness of players such as Alex Pritchard, Bailey Wright, and Corry Evans.
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Pritchard missed last weekend's trip to Accrington with a knock, while Wright returned from injury at the Wham Stadium but was still feeling the after-effects.
Evans has sat out the last two games after suffering concussion in Sunderland's draw at Wycombe Wanderers a fortnight ago but Johnson hopes he will be available this weekend.
"We must have had about nine little contact injuries in training yesterday - I must have run over a black cat or something," said Johnson.
"They'll all be fine, so nothing to worry about there, but I'm so scared going into every training session because we are so light [on numbers] at the moment.
"We're getting stronger as the lads come back from Covid. Leon Dajaku came back [against Accrington] and I thought he did really well considering he had only had one training session in ten days.
"Alex Pritchard was 50-50 [ahead of Accrington] and didn't quite make it, so we'll have to make a judgement on him.
"Bailey Wright wasn't 100 percent after the game, Corry Evans didn't feature against Accrington but we hope he will be available again this weekend.
"It's like a juggling act at the moment, and as we stand today I couldn't tell you the team or the shape - we're going to have to be flexible going into that Portsmouth game.
"We had two new injuries earlier this week, but tomorrow we might have two or three back - who knows?
"At the moment it just feels very fluid and you can't worry too much about it, because whoever comes into contention will be fighting for the shirt."
While Johnson is focusing on the players who could be involved this weekend, there was some good news in that two of his long-term absentees are back in light training.
Luke O'Nien underwent a shoulder operation last month and has this week been pictured out running at the Academy of Light, with the player hoping to return earlier than the initial three-month timescale that was put on his recovery.
And Aiden McGeady has also been involved in training sessions as he continues his recover from the medial ligament injury that has sidelined him since mid-November, although he is still some way off full fitness.
Johnson said: "Luke was back out running and if you listen to Luke, who is a very positive character and full of beans, he's hoping to come back quicker than anyone else has ever come back from that type of injury - and I wouldn't put it past him, to be honest.
"Fitness-wise, I don't think Luke will ever have a problem. He could probably not play for a full year and then step into a 90 minutes and it wouldn't be an issue.
"He will do bags of running under supervision but more than likely he will be doing stuff on his own as well.
"Any boost like that would be massive.
"And McGeady has been out [on the grass] tentatively joining in. We're allowing him to be the floater and we're involving him in the passing drills.
"He's quite a way off in terms of his physical fitness and he is still getting a pinch in that medial liagment, but it is nice to just have him out there and try to design sessions around keeping him engaged."
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