The Toffees have been granted permission for an emergency signing outside the transfer window, after ankle injuries to Nigel Martyn and Richard Wright were followed by the suspension of Iain Turner for this weekend's game, and Poom was being lined up for the deal.

But this morning, the official Evertn site is reporting that they've gone for Pompey's former Liverpool keeper Sander Westerveld. It's not good news for Poom because it probably means he won't get the action he needs if he's going to have much hope of getting ahead of Lehmann or Almunia in Arsene Wenger's thinking.

Worse news for Arsenal, though, is the fact that it's also being suggested that the reason is an injury to Jens Lehmann.

It was said before Tuesday's win over Real Madrid that Arsenal were delaying Poom's move till after that game, in case there were injuries to Lehmann or Almunia. Lehmann did claim an injury, after a clash with a Madrid player in which Lehmann claimed the ball and fell to ground with it, and his opponent kept trying to get at it after the keeper had the ball in his hands. I have to say that at the time I thought that Jens was just making sure that the ref was fully aware of the fact that he'd been fouled. It didn't look like he was that badly hurt, and he was showing his hand when the last swipe of the boot in his direction didn't go anywhere near his hand (and also, as a consequence, didn't go anywhere near the ball - it seemed to strike Lehmann's leg). But it looks like maybe one of the earlier swipes at the ball did indeed catch his hand, because there are reports that it's a hand injury that's persuaded Arsenal not to let him go.

Lehmann carried on for the rest of the game on Tuesday, and continued to play very well, so we have to be optimistic that this isn't going to be a long term problem.

It's not that I'm hugely worried about Almunia, he's had some great games this season. But at a time when we seem to be coming back to form, and defensively in particular, the last thing we need is to lose Lehmann who has been quite superb recently. There's no word from Arsenal yet. It's possible that they don't know the full extent of any problem with Lehmann yet, and just didn't want to commit to losing Poom while there was a chance of losing Lehmann. It wouldn't be surprising to see Poom on the bench for the trip to Blackburn at the weekend, let's keep our fingers crossed that it's not for long.

It's also possible that Lehmann's fine and that the Poom-to-Everton story was made-up in the first place.

Rupe adds...
And just to back up that last point, David Ellcock points out the the 'Evertonians' story reporting Lehmann's iunjury says that we played Real on Wednesday.