The £12m striker has a niggling injury which forced him out of the starting line-up against Southampton at the weekend.
Gus Poyet: “We were trying not to play him at all because he had a problem, a little injury.
“We would not have involved him if we had been doing well.
“I asked him to take a risk for him and for his team-mates and, credit to him, he did.
“It’s a tricky injury and he could have made it worse.
“But he was happy in his warm-up and on the bike indoors before the game, and he gave us a very good 20 minutes.
“Sometimes you have to think of the player and I did not want to be responsible for him getting injured by starting him in the game. But he came through it OK and we just have to assess how it will be in the next few days.”
“We finished the game well and that is an important thing.
“We were fighting and tackling, which was great, and we were lucky not to have any more injuries – which is also important.”