Fulham captain Scott Parker is set to miss either the FA Cup tie at Sunderland on Saturday or tomorrow night's clash at home to Nottingham Forest.
Three-hard fought matches after tomorrow in 12 days, one of them 105 minutes for Parker, will leave Fulham boss Kit Symons soul searching while he scans recovery charts.
The captain and midfield pivot also played an integral part and all 95m:32s in the 2-1 win over Reading on Saturday.
The 34-year-old may yet come up against the Black Cats and miss starting against a side fresh off a heartening 2-1 away win at Derby on Saturday, but once bitten, Symons is twice shy of making the same mistake on 50-50 fitness decisions.
The gaffer put Lasse Vigen Christensen back in the team against Wolves in the home FA Cup match, and saw the Dane limp off after 32 minutes with a recurrence of a hamstring strain, and out of the reckoning of the next four games including tomorrow night.
"Scott's a really important player to us: he's our captain, our leader, and we will look after him as we do every player, but every player is different," explained the manager.
"Scott's one of our older players and they need to be treated differently compared with our younger boys. We're very mindful of that and that will be taken into consideration."