Dundee boss James McPake admitted he was struggling to put a team together to face Hearts before sending Jason Cummings home from training on Friday morning.
The former Hibernian striker will not take part in their cinch Premiership contest with Hearts at the Kilmac Stadium on Saturday.
McPake took action after it emerged on social media that Cummings had attended a live Open Goal podcast event at Glasgow’s Hydro on Thursday night.
With concerns over the spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus, Cummings will miss out against Hearts, a team against whom he scored a late equaliser earlier this season.
McPake was already facing a selection headache with Charlie Adam, Lee Ashcroft, Shaun Byrne and Cillian Sheridan still out and Ryan Sweeney suspended following his late red card against Hibernian in midweek.
Max Anderson went off with a fitness issue at Easter Road, although McPake was hopeful the midfielder came off before any damage was done to a lingering strain.
Striker Danny Mullen and left-back Jordan Marshall are also fitness doubts.
The manager fears he could be missing “close to 10 players” for the clash with Robbie Neilson’s side.
He said: “At the minute we’re racking our brains to get 11 players on the pitch. We’ll find 11 players and we’ll find a system that can compete with Hearts.
“We’re a resilient bunch and we’ll stick together. It’s a testing time for the football club, I’m not going to lie, but we’re not crying about it. If it’s 11 players and two subs, we’ll go ahead and play the game and give everything to try and get a positive result.”
McPake – who has listed only six substitutes in recent matches – explained why he does not have the option of turning to the club’s youngsters.
He said: “There were senior players missing out four weeks ago and now all of a sudden we’re down to this. A lot of the younger players are out on loan so we can’t use them.
“At a time like this, I wish we had them but at the time we decided to get a lot of them out on loan for their own development, we didn’t know we were going to have a week like this.”
