Mark Hughes has revealed that Joe Allen is making good progress from his injury layoff and could be in contention to face former side Swansea City next weekend.
The Wales international, who tops the Potters' scoring charts with six goals this term, hobbled off the pitch during the 2-1 defeat to Liverpool last time out.
Hughes was fearful that he would lose the midfielder for at least a fortnight, and the initial prognosis appears to be correct as Allen is in line to feature against the Swans later this month.
More immediately, Stoke could be without Jon Walters for this Saturday's home match with Hull City, while Ibrahim Affelay is also likely to miss the remainder of the campaign.
"Joe Allen is still out - he's progressing well but he won't be available this weekend," he told reporters. "Ideally, he will be okay for the Swansea game. Jon Walters has got a bit of a problem with his knee. He hasn't trained yet but we'll see how he is tomorrow.
"Unfortunately we've lost Ibi Afellay for a number of weeks. He's got a problem with his knee and he's had surgery in Barcelona. It's five or six weeks and we'll see if he's back before the end of the season.
"With Jack Butland I think there's an amount of work he still needs to do. When you're out for a long time there are a number of boxes to be ticked before the player, his coaches and I'm comfortable. I'm not sure we're there yet but he's very close.
"The important thing is that he's really comfortable with where he is and that wasn't the case leading up to identifying the stress fracture that was missed. At some point he will get games leading into next year."
Stoke have struggled for form in recent weeks, losing four in a row and going six without a win to drift down to 13th place in the Premier League table.
Daniel Lewis
