Arsenal - 2 Charlton Athletic - 1 A ghost walked over Arsenal's grave on Saturday. Having tingled Highbury's spinal column with the free, adventurous spirit of their football, Arsene Wenger's team then sent shivers down its vertebrae with a reminder of how easily an advantage, not to mention a Premiership, can be lost

An opening three-and-a-half minutes of sublime football saw Arsenal take a two-goal lead while Charlton Athletic must have been humming Sweet Georgia Brown, which is the usual lot of those who share a basketball arena with the Harlem Globetrotters. This was an exhibition, not a contest.

Yet stoppage-time found Arsenal clinging with increasing desperation to a 2-1 lead, and survived only by the width of the post from which Jonatan Johansson's audacious bicycle shot rebounded.

Having extended their lead at the top of the table to nine points with 11 matches remaining, Arsenal should be convincing the betting fraternity that they are unassailable. Except that this time last year they led Manchester United by eight points with nine games to go and still finished runners-up.

Saturday warned Arsenal about the consequences of again taking their eye off the ball. During those opening minutes their football came as close to perfection as made no difference, but the problem with being perfect at the start of a game is that there is nowhere to go but down.

All the same, it was a memorable, mesmerising experience as Arsenal confounded Charlton with a high-speed knitting and stitch show of passing and movement. Thierry Henry helped create their first goal after 90 seconds and scored the next two minutes later. If Henry were a racehorse Wenger would even now be claiming half the stud fees, having turned an ephemeral winger into a world-class striker.

Charlton manager Alan Curbishley was right to raise a point of order about the opening goal because the scorer, Robert Pires, was offside by a fraction when Fredrik Ljungberg, having accepted an astute return pass from Henry, fed the ball to him. But since Arsenal had made two dozen passes beforehand the linesman could be forgiven for having spots before his eyes.

Curbishley also queried the legitimacy of the second goal because, though Henry came from behind the ball played square to him by Patrick Vieira, he had been in an offside position when Pires played Vieira through.

At the time such niggles seemed irrelevant since Arsenal were clearly set on scoring half a dozen. Yet by half-time they appeared to have become bored, and when Charlton's midfield began to get a grip, creating a base from which Paolo di Canio and Carlton Cole could turn opponents and find space near goal, parity was steadily restored.

Claus Jensen's free-kick in off a post just before the hour was a result of Di Canio's dribble into a thicket of Arsenal players, one of whom was bound to bring him down. With 15 minutes to go Cole produced a centre which beat Jens Lehmann and would surely have brought an equaliser had Graham Stuart not been too far under the ball when he met it at a vacant far post.

By then Henry and Vieira had missed chances to put the match beyond reach, but the closing minutes found Wenger propping up his panicky defence with Pascal Cygan and thanking providence Johansson's shot had not struck the left-hand post at an angle similar to Jensen's free-kick.

The possibility of Arsenal remaining undefeated in the Premiership for a season is growing all the time. Yet Charlton so nearly proved they can be caught over 90 minutes, and the longer Wenger's team stay in the Champions League the more the division of ambitions may occasionally trip them up.

But surely not often enough to lose the championship now - unless, that is, the ghosts decide otherwise.