However, Arsenal were then awarded their own spot-kick with four minutes left when Dean Richards wrestled Thierry Henry to the ground - only to find that three leading penalty-takers were not available.

Henry, who had missed his last two spot-kicks in any case, was off the pitch injured, second-choice Edu had just been substituted and third-choice Patrick Vieira did not rise to the occasion.

Instead, Cameroon international Lauren picked up the ball and nonchalantly rolled his shot into the middle of the goal to put Arsenal back above Manchester United at the top of the table.

Wenger declared: ‘‘There was a lot of tension and nerves but we found the mental strength to bounce back. It was an important victory as it is still in our hands.

‘‘The fact that we won will give us even more belief. Now our performances will decide. We are very confident and we have a great belief in our team that we will do it.

‘‘Manchester United won earlier against Leicester but that just shows our strength as we were under pressure as we knew we could not slip up.’’

Wenger praised Lauren’s calmness under pressure, adding: ‘‘When Thierry was down, nobody took the ball. But Lauren took the responsibility and did very well.

‘‘I’ve seen so many penalties recently not going in that you’re nervy when the person taking the penalty is not the normal penalty-taker.

‘‘But what gave me the confidence is that he has scored some important penalties with Cameroon and he has the nerves. He is a strong boy in his head.’’

Those penalties included not only shoot-outs at the African Nations’ Cup, but also a last-minute spot-kick which gave Cameroon a semi-final victory against Chile at the 2000 Olympics.

Lauren revealed: ‘‘I took the responsibility to take the penalty as I was confident. I’ve taken them for Cameroon before and scored.’’

Arsenal’s late winner ensured that controversy over Tottenham’s penalty became a side issue, even if Gustavo Poyet looked almost embarrassed when referee Mark Halsey awarded it for a supposed foul by David Seaman.

Wenger insisted: ‘‘I couldn’t believe it. The important thing was how we would react and I was confident we would react strongly.’’

Spurs boss Glenn Hoddle, who revealed that defender Ledley King had gone off with an Achilles injury, took a rather different view of the two penalties.

‘‘Ours was a little bit clearer as there were less bodies around. The lads thought their penalty was 50-50, it wasn’t as blatant as ours,’’ he maintained.

‘‘We should have weathered the storm after getting back to 1-1.’’