'We got away with one' - Aston Villa boss Dean Smith reacts to 'ghost goal' controversy in draw with Sheffield United

Oliver Norwood looked to have put the Blades ahead just before half-time of the first game back in the Premier League, when Ørjan Nyland caught his inswinging free-kick before carrying the ball over the line.

Television replays confirmed that the ball was comfortably over the line, but referee Michael Oliver's watch failed to alert him to give the goal.

HawkEye later apologised to United in a statement, which said that this game was the first in 9,000 when such an event had occured.

And Villa manager 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.

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"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."

A statement from the Professional Game Match Officials Board explained why VAR did not intervene when the technology failed.

It read: "Under the IFAB protocol, the VAR is able to check goal situations, however due to the fact that the on-field match officials did not receive a signal, and the unique nature of that, the VAR did not intervene."

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