Blues boss Steve Tilson has accepted it will be difficult to offer the Estonain centre-half any sort of contract after Stepanov picked up a hamstring strain just after the half-hour in Southend's first warm-up match of the pre-season.
Tilly told the Echo after the game: "That was the only real downer on the evening and you do have to feel for Andrei. It's his hamstring and he can't run on it at the moment. There is no way he will be able to play at Witham Town tomorrow and it's a real shame. We wanted to have a look at him in these games but he's got injured after 35 minutes in the first one and it's obviously hard to judge him on that. We don't know how long he is going to be out for with the injury but he's in pain with it now and we will just have to wait and see how he responds to treatment and then go from there."