Leeds United head coach Jesse Marsch has revealed that Patrick Bamford is in contention to feature in Sunday's relegation decider at Brentford. The Whites go into the final day of the Premier League season needing to beat Burnley's result in order to survive.
Ahead of the trip to west London, Marsch has undergone his pre-match press conference duties, where he said that Bamford, who ruptured his plantar fasciitis during the 3-2 win at Wolves in March, has trained well this week.
"Patrick Bamford has looked really good this week," he said. "We still haven't made a final decision on exactly where he'll stand for the moment on Sunday, but he had a day off today, inside to recuperate effectively, but we're hopeful that we can make the decision in the next couple of days that we can make him available for minutes on Sunday."
Read more: Follow Jesse Marsch's press conference LIVE
When pressed on what they will be needing to see from Bamford 48 hours ahead of kick-off, he added: "More than anything that we're not risking him at any level. At the moment I don't believe we would be.
"And then to just have one more meeting with Patrick tomorrow to go through what it looks like, what the loads have been, how he feels and then do a final assessment of 'is he available?', 'how many minutes', 'what's the best strategy' and then we have to be ready to let him go and play."
Marsch also revealed that Luke Ayling - who is suspended this weekend - has undergone knee surgery, meaning the right-back is a doubt for the start of the new season.
"Luke Ayling has successful surgery yesterday," he added. "Based on how the surgery went we're hopeful that it's not too long. Somewhere between two and four months, we'll see exactly how he progresses, but it's on a knee issue that he had to get sorted out, so we decided to take this time to use to get him healthy."
Long-term absentees Stuart Dallas, Adam Forshaw, Tyler Roberts and Crysencio Summerville have all already been ruled out for the rest of the campaign, while Ayling and Daniel James remain suspended following their recent red cards.
Marsch was able to give an update on Roberts.
"Tyler Roberts was in training today, but will not be available for selection. It was his first day back in training, it was good to get him back and means he's ahead of schedule and will be certainly ready for the start of next year."
Leeds will start the final day of the season in the final relegation spot following Burnley's 1-1 draw at Aston Villa on Thursday evening. Both sides have 35 points, but Leeds' far inferior goal difference means that they will need to better the result that the Clarets are able to achieve at home to Newcastle United in order to survive.
Leeds come into the match having picked up just two points from their last 15 on offer and face an 11th-placed Brentford side that have lost just one of their last six games
All fixtures kick off on 4pm on Saturday, with Leeds' clash being televised live on Sky Sports.
