He has had the results of a scan on the knee problem which saw him leave the field early in the second half against Bradford on Tuesday, and Trevor Brooking says: "Rob Lee is out of this weekend but the good news is that it wasn't serious ligament damage, as we had been looking at weeks and perhaps months when he first did the injury.
"But it doesn't look as bad and I would think that whoever is in charge by the Reading game would have a chance of including him in the squad if he can make progress.
"I know myself that in the late 30s the bones can take a little longer to heal but certainly Rob is going to be working hard to get himself in the squad for that game, so that is encouraging.
"But we have still got Rufus and Lomy out for a long while, and the young lad Elliott Ward is probably going to be out for months rather than weeks as well - other than that we should be okay."
The loss of defender Elliot is a huge problem, however, as he was expected to make inroads into the first team squad this season.
"Elliott was alongside Anton coming through the group; he got a back injury in his first run out in pre-season," says Trevor.
"We are going to get a final opinion next week but it looks as if he will need some sort of surgery to resolve it.
"The diagnosis is that it would be no problem for the future and he will totally recover, but it will be quite a long period of rehabilitation to get back and you are looking into the second half of the season and then it depends on how it feels and how he progresses as to when we need to look at him.
"But, from the youngster's point of view it is a blow because there is an opportunity this season.
"Hopefully it will be a success, he will work hard, and then puts himself up for whenever he feels fit again."
Trevor reveals he has attempted to bring in a left-back to the club this week, but has had to concede defeat.
"I have desperately tried to get a left-back in," he says, "but now there is a two-week break and I am a little reluctant to do too much because if we get an early appointment somebody might already have two or three people in mind that they wanted to bring in.
"So you don't want to fill in too many gaps - but you don't want to have too many gaps playing matches.
"We have this one game, which isn't ideal, and you would like two or three extra bodies for that, but we have got the two week break where we will probably need to have at least a couple in by the time Reading come around.
"What you want to do is get somebody you are going to be comfortable with rather than a brief stop-gap and then change when somebody else comes.
"We are also trying to build a good spirit in the dressing room and if we can get a decent result at Ipswich, even with perhaps not the depth of squad we would like, and then add to it gradually it will get the continuity going.
"So rather than just plug it briefly we would try and get somebody we think can do a good job and perhaps be in there for a longer period that is what we will try and do."