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Wanderers face a trio of tricky injury problems as they head to League One leaders Birmingham City on Tuesday night.
Club captain George Thomason sustained a hamstring injury in training on Friday and is rated as a major doubt for the game at St Andrew’s.
There are also concerns over defender Eoin Toal and keeper Nathan Baxter, both of which missed Saturday’s 2-1 win against Burton Albion, and have not yet been cleared for a return.
Bolton had hoped that Toal would be able to feature against Burton after complaining of dizziness during his international appearances for Northern Ireland against Belarus and Bulgaria.
The club have not yet confirmed whether the centre-half was diagnosed with concussion, which could carry with it a mandatory rest spell.
Baxter picked up a muscular injury playing against Shrewsbury before the international break but was scheduled to return to training before the weekend.
Whites assistant manager Stephen Crainey took the post-match press conference on Saturday evening but was unsure whether any of the three players would be able to play a part against the League One leaders.
“We’re hoping for a clean bill of health but we won’t really know about the players who have played in that game until Monday morning. Regardless, we go to Birmingham and need to put on a good performance,” he said.
“I think George (Thomason) is his hamstring but in terms of length of time, I am not too sure, we need to wait on the medical team.
“And then it’s up to Nathan and the medical team again, sometimes players are on the grass, then they are not, so we just wait until we’re told they are fully fit. Until we’re told otherwise, we’ll be going with the squad we have got.”
Wanderers moved into 11th with the 2-1 win against Burton, the goals suppled by Aaron Collins and Randell Williams. The club are six points off second-placed Wrexham, with one game in hand, and now a point outside the play-offs.
Birmingham, who spent an unprecedented £30million on transfers over the summer, have dropped points in just two of their first 10 games.
Charlton Athletic are the only side to beat them thus far but Crainey provided an upbeat message from the Bolton dressing room after the final whistle.
“We believe if we play to our potential we can win any game of football and we will go there positive, as will Birmingham. We need to go there knowing we can win the game,” he said.
“Yes, it will be tough, St Andrews is a vibrant place at the moment and they have got their tails up, it will be a good atmosphere, 30,000 fans.
“But we need to go there and show some personality and character. We have won four out of the last five and we want to maintain that. When you win games it rockets you up the table and that’s what we want.
“We’ll be prepared for Tuesday and it is a game we’re really looking forward to, so hopefully we can go there and get a good result.”
On the Burton performance, Crainey admitted the afternoon should have been more comfortable than it turned out.
“It was just disappointing conceding the goal so quickly off the back of going 2-0 up,” he said. “It made it a wee bit nervy towards the end. Credit to the lads, they held on.
“We don’t want balls coming into the box at that late stage, so can we ger more pressure on the ball to stop that happening. But when they did come in I think we defended them quite well.
“There are loads of aspects we can get better at in that game but we are delighted with three points.”
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