Cardiff City say Riccardo Scimeca has a realistic chance of playing in Saturday's Championship match with Sheffield Wednesday at Ninian Park.
Scimeca came off at half-time against Sunderland on Saturday after suffering a recurrence of a groin injury.
"At the moment he's 50-50," said manager Dave Jones. "I won't say one way or another. We'll wait and see.
"We've still got another couple of days before he needs to be in training to see if he's got a chance of playing."
Scimeca suffered a groin tear against Southampton on 13 March, forcing him to miss the subsequent 3-1 defeat to Derby.
"Every game we play, we treat it as we're playing a team at the top"
The 31-year-old was able to start against Sunderland last Saturday after having pain-killing injections, but the gamble failed to pay off as he was withdrawn at the break after an ineffective first half.
The 1-0 defeat to Sunderland leaves the Bluebirds three points outside the top six play-off places with six games to go this season.
Cardiff will not face any of their promotion rivals in the run-in, but Jones says he is wary of facing three sides threatened by relegation.
"Everybody tells me if you're playing teams at the bottom you've got an easy run-in, well you haven't," said Jones.
"This division is the most unpredictable division that's going. At this moment, every game we play, we treat it as we're playing a team at the top.
"Certainly at this stage of the season, if you think you've got an easy game it will turn out not to be.
"We'll prepare in a professional manner for every game and expect a tough game. But if we play to our capabilities, we're a match for anybody in this division, which we've proved all season.
"We've now got to make sure with these last six games coming up that we're still in the mix after that so we have a chance of a play-off spot to get out of this division and into the Premiership."