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Wanderers boss Ian Evatt has confirmed that Ricardo Santos, Dapo Afolayan and Kyle Dempsey will all miss Saturday’s clash with Sheffield Wednesday.
The trio suffered hamstring injuries in the 1-1 draw with Portsmouth on Tuesday night.
Evatt also revealed that illness has affected the camp and admits they could be down to the bare bones against the Owls.
The Bolton chief is still waiting for scan results but fears Santos could miss the remainder of the campaign.
“We are waiting on the results of scans but Dapo, Kyle and Ricardo all injured their hamstrings and will all miss Saturday,” he told The Bolton News.
“On top of that, we have got one or two others that are carrying knocks and niggles and also some illness in camp, so we are back to scraping the barrel.
“We will expect the reports to come through by close of play tonight.
“If I was to have a stab in the dark and from listening to the physios, I would say Kyle and Dapo have a chance of playing again this season but Rico doesn’t.”
Declan John is available after returning from injury against Pompey, but Kieran Lee remains sidelined as he continues his recovery from heel surgery.
Evatt added: “Kieran Lee is still missing. He has still got some soreness in the heel. All of a sudden we are very light again but that is football.
“It has been one of those seasons but we are not going to sulk or moan about it. We just need to get our head down and perform as best we can.
“I think (injuries) are going to end up costing us dearly to be honest, especially that spell in November and December.
“But you have seasons like this, there is no point feeling sorry for ourselves. What we need to do is understand why and look at training loads, look at physical data, what we are doing the gym and our training intensity level, and try to tweak things to prevent them as best we can.
“You are never going to prevent every injury but you can certainly do as many things as you possibly can to limit the risk.
Despite bringing in seven new additions during the January transfer window, Evatt insists most squads would be hit hard by their current injury problems.
“When you get four or five injuries in one game and mostly to key personnel, and then illness to key personnel as well, there are not many squads that can cope with that,” he explained.
“As strong as we feel ours is, we just cannot cope with the level of players who are missing this week.”
Meanwhile, Dion Charles has received a warning from the FA in relation to his historical tweets.
The Bolton forward has now been ordered to attend a “mandatory face-to-face education programme”.
“Dion has apologised,” added Evatt. “In no way, shape or form do we condone any of those actions but thankfully it has been dealt with now and put to bed.”
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