Can-do Kanu brings relief

Arsenal 2 Bolton Wanderers 1: Nigerian's last-gasp retort glosses over the shortcomings

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Kanu's face-saver for Seaman

Bolton Wanderers, with their penchant for tripping up the bigger boys, were a minute away from causing another surprise to follow victory at Old Trafford yesterday, thanks to David "Safe Hands" Seaman, who allowed Gareth Farrelly's cross from the touchline to beat him, Ronaldinho-style, for an equaliser just after the interval.

Nwankwo Kanu's winning jab well into stoppage time brought relief to Seaman and Thierry Henry, who had missed a penalty before bringing about another statistical milestone – Arsenal's 46th successive game without firing a blank. Before the finish, there were only 10 players in opposition, Ivan Campo having been dismissed for two silly pieces of dissent.

Arsène Wenger, never a manager to criticise his players in public, generously suggested Seaman had been wrong-footed by a deflection off Ray Parlour and denied that the goalkeeper would suffer. "You forget when you win the game," Wenger said.

Delighted as the manager was with the team's never-say-draw spirit, it was not their most fluent performance. The absence of Patrick Vieira, serving his suspension for a sending off at Chelsea, had something to do with that. In addition, Dennis Bergkamp was left on the bench for 68 minutes, with a view to Wednesday's Champions' League tie in Eindhoven. His first touch after coming on sent Henry away to beat Jussi Jaaskelainen, but the assistant referee made a howler to match Seaman's by raising his flag for offside.

Bolton's Sam Allardyce, as old-school as Wenger is new-breed, forgot that incident when claiming to be "very disappointed with all the major decisions". Nor could there be any complaints over the penalty award in the 14th minute. Gudni Bergsson blatantly held Fredrik Ljungberg's shirt – will they never learn? – but Henry's kick hit the inside of a post and rolled apologetically away. Pessimists among the home crowd, if such exist, might have wondered whether it would be one of those days, all the more so after Henry capitalised on hesitation between Bergsson and his goalkeeper a few minutes later, only to toe-poke his effort across goal.

In the 26th minute, however, fluid movement and accurate passing had their reward: as both wide players switched inside, Sylvain Wiltord found Ljungberg, and Henry moved clear of Bergsson and wide of the goalkeeper for a slide-rule finish.

Bolton needed to change tack, if not tactics, by offering the lonely Dean Holdsworth greater assistance. Allardyce made the obvious change at the interval, sending on Michael Ricketts for one of his midfielders, but he could hardly have anticipated the first 90 seconds of the second half. Farrelly, under pressure from Parlour right out on the left touchline, miscued a centre that found Seaman too far forward and only able to turn and watch in Shizuoka mode as the ball dropped over and behind him for a ridiculous equaliser.

Allardyce might have been tempted to take Ricketts straight off again, but settled for making him the lone attacker, and replacing Holdsworth, who was becoming involved in a feud with Martin Keown, with Jay-Jay Okocha. The sense of frustration felt by Henry, in trying a shot from inside his own half, was mirrored by Bergkamp, whose forearm caught Campo, and the Spaniard must still have been feeling the blood rushing to his head shortly afterwards; booked as early as the ninth minute for dissent, he now threw the ball away and was sent off.

"That cost us dear," Allardyce admitted. "If we'd kept 11 men on the pitch, we would have held on." They looked like doing so as Henry's free-kick, moved 10 yards forward, curled a fraction wide, after which he and the substitute Kolo Touré were both denied by Jaaskelainen. But with three of the four added minutes gone, Henry leapt to flick on Ashley Cole's cross and Kanu, an unpopular figure with many home supporters, redeemed himself by poking home.

It was a clever piece of psychology, and tactical nous, from Wenger, who had resisted calls to take the languid Nigerian off because: "I knew we'd play the ball in the box a lot and with his body strength and ball protection, he'd create danger". Seaman, noticeably, celebrated the winning goal as enthusiastically as anyone inside Highbury.