The Brownlow medallist sat out the second half of last weekend's win over Port Adelaide after straining his calf muscle.
Black has been on a light training load this week and was named in the Lions squad to take on the Western Bulldogs but coach Michael Voss said it was now very doubtful that the midfielder would line up on Saturday night.
"He's about to see the physio, but he's 50-50 on Friday so I would have thought it's very doubtful [that he'll play]," Voss said at training on Friday morning.
"It's his calf. He's been rumbling along. We were hoping once he started moving around he'd be okay but again I would have thought he's doubtful. We were hopeful that we could plan with him in there but we're going forward thinking that he's not."
A decision will be made later on Friday whether or not Black will play, but it is likely one of Troy Selwood, Pearce Hanley or Matt Austin will replace the injured vice-captain.
The Lions will also be without ruckman Mitch Clark and Ash McGrath, who are both missing through suspension, but will regain Jared Brennan and Albert Proud.
Voss said Brennan was a handy addition to the side and would provide lone ruckman Matthew Leuenberger with some much needed assistance.
"One of the things we really got was some really good ground level second efforts off Jared last year," Voss said.
"We know he can play that role, just to give Leuey a bit of a chop-out at different times during the game. I'm sure they [Western Bulldogs] will be looking at it saying 'oh, they've got one ruckman so work him over'.
"But I think Leuey is in a really good frame of mind to take on that challenge and I'm sure they'll come at him with everything, but we've just got to make sure we can support him where we can and give him a chop-out when needed."
The Western Bulldogs defence will go head-to-head with the Lions' power forward duo of Jonathan Brown and Brendan Fevola but Voss isn't overly concerned about which Bulldogs' defenders will try to stop the home team's forwards.
"One of the strengths the Bulldogs have had is flexibility in their defence. They've got [Tom] Williams, [Ryan] Hargrave, [Brian] Lake and [Dale] Morris - and very good defenders in their own right and could certainly play on any one of those roles," Voss said.
"I'd be very surprised if Morris didn't line up on one of them at least; the others we'll just have to wait and see. We're not too concerned about the match ups. We just have to make sure it's a contest and that we give our opportunities to our forwards the best way we can."
