Kanu's face-saver for Seaman

Champions are a) teams who win even when things are not going well; or b) teams who can rely on their goalkeeper to save them from other players' errors. Discuss.

To judge from yesterday's events there is no argument. Arsenal stayed top of the Premiership by beating Bolton 2-1 even though David Seaman, England's accident-prone No 1, had another of those World Cup moments. For Ronaldinho read Gareth Farrelly, whose cross-cum-shot early in the second half floated over the ponytailed one and dropped inside his far post for an unexpected equaliser.

The only difference from Seaman's foul-up in the Far East was that this time there was not so much room for argument; the evidence heavily favoured the fluke theory and so did Arsenal's manager, Arsène Wenger. "It was very unfortunate but David knows deep down that he couldn't do anything about the goal. It won't affect him," the sympathetic Frenchman said. "You may feel hard done by but you forget it easily when you win the game."

Which Arsenal did, even though it looked like being one of those days. First, Thierry Henry missed a penalty before extending the club's record scoring run to 46 matches; then the fates conspired to embarrass Seaman again; and when Dennis Bergkamp set up Henry, an assistant referee's unlikely flag ruled the goal out. So Nwankwo Kanu's injury-time winner, after Bolton had Ivan Campo sent off, came as a relief to more than just Seaman.

The goalkeeper theory was undone at Old Trafford and Anfield, where Tottenham's Kasey Keller and West Bromwich's Joe Murphy, respectively, must have felt cheated. Keller was all set for the hero's role as he defied Manchester United with a string of fine saves, but he was undone by a Ruud van Nistelrooy penalty as Spurs slipped to third in the League. United's manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, acknowledged Keller's contribution, saying: "Their 'keeper was superb but we dug in."

Murphy came off the bench to face a Michael Owen penalty after Russell Hoult and his first act was to deny England's off-form striker. But the No 31's magic touch deserted him – Liverpool won with goals by Milan Baros and John Arne Riise to move up to second place.

Second place is nowhere in a derby, and nowhere was where a shell-shocked Peter Reid seemed to feel after his Sunderland side lost 2-0 at Newcastle. And it was all going so well for 84 seconds... then Craig Bellamy made it 1-0. "Cheer up Peter Reid", as the Sunderland fans sing; surely Magpies will not have the satisfaction of seeing the axe fall at a time like this.