Leeds United injury news v Southampton with two major doubts, injection hope and one ruled out

Leeds United striker Patrick Bamford is yet to return to team training and remains a doubt for Saturday's game against Southampton.

A bruised knee, sustained against Middlesbrough, kept Bamford from action last Friday in the 4-0 defeat at Queens Park Rangers but he has continued to struggle ahead of the final Championship outing of the season.

Leeds still have an outside chance of making the automatic promotion places but must beat the Saints and hope that relegation-threatened Huddersfield Town overcome second-placed Ipswich Town. Boss Daniel Farke is not sure he will be able to count on either Bamford or right-back Connor Roberts.

"Well we have obviously our long-term injuries," he said. "Stuart Dallas, Pascal Struijk out for the season, Daniel James will definitely miss the game. Big question mark behind Connor Roberts, today was the first day he was involved in parts of the team training, definitely not ready for 90 minutes, could be a topic for the squad. It will be a late decision.

"Big question mark behind Patrick Bamford, no full team training, just individual work. Yes we still have some hopes he's perhaps available, but I'm not sure for how many minutes. It will also be a late decision. That's more or less it."

Farke insists Leeds will not throw caution to the wind when it comes to Bamford's fitness and he claims the potential of play-off games will not enter his thinking until automatic promotion is no longer possible.

"We never take risks of any player, health is always important and it never works if a player is not capable to train all week and you throw him into the mix suddenly and pray he delivers," he said.

"You have to earn your spot. It is not possible if you're not involved in team training. As it stands we're not thinking about what happens after the last game of the regular season. We know it's a small chance to attack the automatic promotion places. As long as there's a chance we go for it."

Farke believes Leeds' medical team have done their utmost to return Bamford to fitness, including injections, which he hopes will finally work on what he calls an 'unlucky' injury.

"We also expected him to be back earlier because there is no damage on the scan, but the bruise affects the ligament and for that he's still not able to stretch his leg," said the German.

"We tried everything, even some injection therapy, we're a bit surprised we're unable to get this bruise out of his knee, it's in an area where it's difficult to treat manually. We hope the injections help, I hope he'll return back to team training tomorrow. If he's capable we have a chance for him to be available on Saturday.

“He's missed a bit much to start. There is no major injury, it's more like really unlucky. He had a sliding tackle against a post I think it once. No one can be blamed and we try everything."