Nedum Onuoha is out for the rest of the season, Micah Richards is still not ready following knee surgery and Javier Garrido remains out.
Skipper Richard Dunne looks set to join them on the sidelines with a hamstring injury which forced him to limp out of last week's 3-1 win over Portsmouth, when Elano had to fill in at right-back after Sun Jihai's late withdrawal.
Sven has recalled youngster Shaleum Logan from his loan spell at Stockport to boost his defensive options, while Sam Williamson, who came on for his 1st-team debut last week, will be aiming to impress as he is out of contract this summer.
"We have some problems with defenders at the moment," admitted Sven.
"We have Onuoha out, Richards out, Garrido out and probably our captain Richard Dunne as well.
"Having 4 defenders out is a big problem for us, and we only have 7 defenders so we took Logan back because we needed the cover."