AITOR KARANKA is sweating over the fitness of three of his key players as he prepares for Middlesbrough’s penultimate game of the season at Fulham this weekend.

Patrick Bamford, Jelle Vossen and Albert Adomah are all major doubts for a game that Boro will almost certainly have to win if they are to retain their hopes of clinching automatic promotion.

Bamford is struggling with the ankle injury that restricted his movement throughout the second half of last week’s 1-0 win at Norwich, and has not been able to take part in full training this week.

However, it is expected that the recently-crowned Championship Player of the Year will be passed fit to line up at Craven Cottage.

Vossen, who was substituted in the second half at Carrow Road, is a much more serious doubt. The Belgian suffered leg and ankle injuries at Norwich and is rated unlikely to recover in time for Saturday.

Adomah has been struggling with a series of knocks for the last three games, but having proved his fitness ahead of the Norwich game, the Ghana international is determined to be involved again at Fulham.

Karanka said: “I don’t know about Patrick and Jelle at the moment. They couldn’t train 100 per cent with the team and I have to check on them tomorrow and especially on Saturday.

“I have other players if they can’t play on Saturday, and the team which is going to play at Fulham is going to be the best.

“Albert had problems against Wolves. He was so bad against Wolves, and at the end of the game against Norwich, he finished very sore again. It is his ankle, but I hope he will have a chance (of playing at Fulham).”

Tomas Kalas will not be involved at Craven Cottage as he played the final game of his loan from Chelsea last Friday.

Ryan Fredericks is available after recovering from injury, although Karanka is also considering Emilio Nsue and Dwight Tiendalli for the vacant slot on the right-hand side of the back four.

He said: “We have Ryan, and we also have Emilio and Dwight. At the beginning of the season, it was a position that wasn’t covered. But now it is covered very well.

“Tomas will be a big miss because he played really well in most of the games where he played as a right-back. But now we have other alternatives so it is not a headache for me.”

Boro’s promotion fate is not their own hands, as even if they win their remaining two matches, they will be unable to overtake Watford or Bournemouth if both of the clubs currently above them also claim maximum points.

Karanka insists the play-offs were always the ambition at the start of the season anyway, but the Spaniard remains confident his players are capable of forcing their way into the top two.

He said: “They can do it, and they have shown everybody that they can. Two months ago, if you looked at our fixtures we had Derby, Bournemouth, Watford and Norwich away. But now, after those games, we are in this position so we can do it.

“But we need to learn from the mistakes we made against Bournemouth and Watford or Nottingham Forest and I think we have learned.

“So we can win these two games playing but always playing in our way.”