Aston Villa boss Dean Smith has admitted that his side dodged a bullet against Sheffield United yesterday as the Blades were denied a clear goal.
Sheffield United traveled to the Villa Park yesterday in the Premier League opener and played out a controversial draw. Oliver Norwood’s free-kick from the left side looked to have crossed the line as it caused problems for Ørjan Nyland to control it. The ball looked to have crossed the goal line after colliding with Davis. The match referee received no indication from his watch but the replays show that Nyland clearly crossed the line with the ball.
Chris Wilder says he doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the failure to award his side a goal against Villa. Joked about the goalline technology watch from Del Boy’s market but his frustration was clear #sufc #twitterblades pic.twitter.com/L4QXLrdP1M
— Danny Hall (@dannyhall04) June 17, 2020
HawkEye later apologised for the mistake in a statement. Villa boss Dean Smith admitted after the game:
“We controlled the first 30 minutes but we got away with one, certainly, with the technology not working. But I’ve been in the other position where technology has not been good for us at times.
“There’s always going to be some error, we have human error from officials and we have to accept that.
“There’s going to be errors in technology as we’ve seen with VAR this season and now for the first time ever with Hawk-Eye. We just have to accept it and move on, there’s nothing else we can do.
“We’re the ones who go away disappointed even with that controversy. The fact that we are just shows that the performance was good. We need to maintain that level.”
Sheffield would have won all three points if not for the error. A draw has pushed them ahead of Wolves in the table and one point behind United. However, Aston Villa dominated the game at times by creating many good chances.
