Arsenal's fading hopes of challenging for the Premier League title dimmed further on Saturday when they were held to a goalless home draw by West Ham United.

Aston Villa, in fourth, failed to take advantage as they too shared a goalless home draw with in-form Wigan Athletic, staying five points clear of the fifth-placed Gunners.

Manchester United, who host Everton later on Saturday (1730GMT), have 50 points and are two ahead of Villa and seven clear of Arsenal.

Third-placed Liverpool and Chelsea, in second, both have 48 points and meet at Anfield on Sunday.

Arsenal, who scrambled a point with an injury-time Robin van Persie goal in Wednesday's 1-1 draw at Everton, desperately needed a win to stay in touch with the leading pack.

They struggled though to impose themselves on a hard-working West Ham side and, with Van Persie starting on the bench, lacked sharpness in attack against their London rivals who are unbeaten in seven successive away league games.

West Ham's James Collins headed a Kolo Toure effort off the line and Emmanuel Adebayor missed two good chances. Even Van Persie, on for the last 15 minutes, could not prevent his side's first 0-0 home draw in three years.

It was a similar story at Villa Park though Wigan carried enough threat of their own to prevent the hosts throwing everyone forward.

KNIGHT CLOSE

Centre back Zat Knight hit the bar and Villa had another effort cleared off the line as Wigan defended stubbornly.

The last time Darren Bent appeared for Tottenham Hotspur he missed a sitter and was criticised by manager Harry Redknapp.

On Saturday he was looking like the 'Prodigal Striker' and came off the bench at the Reebok Stadium with Spurs trailing 2-0 and scored twice in three minutes midway through the second half.

Bolton, who had thrown away a 2-0 lead to draw with Blackburn Rovers in midweek, led with first-half goals by Sebastien Puygrenier and Kevin Davies and Davies popped up to ruin Bent's day by heading the winner four minutes from time.

Manchester City ended a miserable month when they were beaten 1-0 at Stoke City, who played more than half the game with 10 men.

Stoke's first win in 10 matches came via a James Beattie header after Rory Delap had been sent off for kicking Shaun Wright-Phillips in the 37th minute.

"We do a tremendous amount of work with our defensive eight against 11 in training because we know we will constantly be up against it against very, very good teams," said Stoke manager Tony Pulis.

"I tell them, 'it's life, this is what you are going to have to do.' You have to stick in there when we are put under pressure like that by very good players."

English Premier League TOP SCORERS on
Saturday
14 Nicolas Anelka (Chelsea)
11 Robinho (Manchester City)
10 Amr Zaki (Wigan Athletic)           

 Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United)
  9 Steven Gerrard (Liverpool)           

 Frank Lampard (Chelsea)              

 Robin van Persie (Arsenal)           

 Gabriel Agbonlahor (Aston Villa)     

 Darren Bent (Tottenham Hotspur)      

 Jermain Defoe (Tottenham Hotspur)
  8 Djibril Cisse (Sunderland)           

 Peter Crouch (Portsmouth)            

 Carlton Cole (West Ham United)       

 Emmanuel Adebayor (Arsenal)          

 Kevin Davies (Bolton Wanderers)      

 Michael Owen (Newcastle United)
  7 Benni McCarthy (Blackburn Rovers)    

 Stephen Ireland (Manchester City)
  6 Ricardo Fuller (Stoke City)          

 Kenwyne Jones (Sunderland)           

 Roman Bednar (West Bromwich Albion)  

 Tim Cahill (Everton)                 

 Jason Roberts (Blackburn Rovers)     

 Matthew Taylor (Bolton Wanderers)    

 Obafemi Martins (Newcastle United)   

 Wayne Rooney (Manchester United)     

 Dimitar Berbatov (Manchester United) 

 Geovanni (Hull City)                 

 Craig Bellamy (Manchester City)