Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder was left baffled after the Blades were denied victory at Aston Villa by a technical fault.

Goal-line technology failed to award the visitors a winner after Orjan Nyland carried Oliver Norwood’s first-half free kick over the line.

Referee Michael Oliver’s watch failed to signal the goal and the game – which finished 0-0 – continued.

It stopped the Blades moving above Manchester United into fifth as they continue to mount a surprise European challenge.

Hawk-Eye, which runs the technology, issued a statement apologising for the error, saying the fact goalkeeper Nyland, Keinan Davis and the post were in the way meant no camera saw the ball cross the line.

But Wilder insisted it was clear the ball was over.

But they failed to move out of the bottom three ahead of hosting Chelsea on Sunday and boss Dean Smith admitted Villa got lucky.

He said: “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.”