Manchester City looked good value for a point after battling through the disappointment of allowing Sylvain Wiltord to level Lauren’s bizarre early own goal.

But all their good work was undone in a frantic penalty-box skirmish 17 minutes from time in which Seaman came out to collect a dangerous Thierry Henry pass intended for Robert Pires but succeeded only in kneeing it straight to Freddie Ljungberg who tapped the winner into an empty net.

After 13 glorious years service at Highbury, it must have been heartbreaking for Seaman to make such a mistake but City’s failure to make the most of decent passages of possession emphasised why manager Kevin Keegan has brought Steve McManaman and Claudio Reyna to the club in the past 48 hours.

The victory maintained Arsenal’s 100% start to the season and after a summer in which Seaman’s departure and the arrival of his replacement Jens Lehmann was almost the only discernible transfer activity, Arsene Wenger appears to have measured the merits of his squad exactly right.

The Seaman sub-plot which surrounded the fixture was shoved forcibly to one side as news filtered through of Manchester United’s unexpected demise at Southampton.

For Arsenal it meant the opportunity to take a decisive lead at the top of the table; for City if offered the chance of a two-week stay at the summit following their 24-hour stop-off earlier in the week.

Having never led the Premiership at all prior to their win over Blackburn last Monday, the state of play was of far more significance to City and it looked like that by the way both sides began the game.

Aside from an early chance for Henry, the visitors created nothing for half an hour.

In that time, Paul Bosvelt had ignited a running battle with Patrick Vieira, Sylvain Distin and David Sommeil had performed creditably at the heart of City’s defence and Shaun Wright-Phillips was giving Ashley Cole an afternoon of misery down the right.

While these fine individual performances gave the Blues reason for optimism after successive heavy home defeats to today’s opponents, no-one could have predicted exactly how they ended up taking the lead.

Even under the initial pressure from Trevor Sinclair, there was no excuse for Lauren’s failure to execute a clean back pass to Lehmann as he chased down Distin’s long punt downfield.

In his effort to make amends with the second attempt, Lauren tried to steady himself, received a shove in the back from Sinclair as he drew his foot back and then dispatched the ball into the corner of his own net.

The Cameroon defender could have counted himself exceptionally unlucky not to have been given a foul following Sinclair’s contact but he did only have himself to blame for getting into that position in the first place.

What City needed to do then was seal off midfield and stop Arsenal getting any flow into their attacks. To a large extent they succeeded in their task.

It was only towards the end of the opening period that the Gunners managed any penetration and even then they found Seaman’s bulky presence clearing up the danger.

Keegan would no doubt have spent most of his half-time team talk stressing the need for concentration and diligent defending.

So the former England manager must have been pretty disappointed at Shaun Wright-Phillips’ failure to track Cole’s charge into the box, which allowed the full-back to collect a Pires pass and set up Wiltord for the leveller just three minutes after the re-start.

For a short time afterwards, it looked as though City would be swamped but slowly they got a hold on the game again and should really have gone in front when Nicolas Anelka’s cross found its way to Antoine Sibierski, who could only toe-poke it into Lehmann’s path.

Anelka’s stinging effort shortly afterwards tested the German far more but Lehmann’s full-length save proved to be a pivotal moment in the contest as Seaman was about to make the blunder which gifted his old side their winner.

It could have been worse for City had Sun Jihai not got back to rob Henry after the Frenchman had profited from Joey Barton’s mistake and taken the ball round Seaman and Kevin Keegan will be hoping the injection of McManaman and Reyna into his team will end disappointing days like these.