Birmingham's young goalkeeper Colin Doyle saved an injury-time penalty to put Steve Bruce's side back on top of the Championship.

The Ireland Under 21 keeper capped a man-of-the-match performance by stopping Michael McIndoe's spot-kick after Bruno N'Gotty fouled Jody Craddock.

The first half somehow ended goalless and was followed by 45 minutes of breathless action and Doyle covered himself in glory long before Andy Cole struck his first goal for his new club.

The young Irishman worked overtime as shots rained in from all angles before the interval. He denied Andy Keogh three times and Birmingham hit the crossbar when Stephen Clemence hooked a ball over Matt Murray.

Nine minutes into the second half Doyle's long free-kick was flicked on by Bendtner and Cole lobbed Murray with the outside of his right boot.

But within 17 minutes it had all gone horribly wrong for the visitors. McIndoe stole in after Kightly had terrorised Stephen Kelly and Martin Taylor's desperate clearance went in off a post.

Then Keogh crossed from the right for McIndoe to shrug off N'Gotty and nod in the second before Bendtner produced a magnificent header to level from Gary McSheffrey's corner.

With time running out, McSheffrey threaded a ball through to Jerome, who ignored the pleas of better-placed team-mates to fire through Murray's legs — and the penalty drama was still to come.

Speaking after the game Bruce said "But you've got to be a good goalkeeper to keep someone like Maik Taylor out of the team. And nothing fazes Doyley. He's made some incredibly important saves in the past couple of weeks and none more so than that one."

Arsenal may well be taking an ever closer look at young Doyle in the coming season.