Aston Villa were beaten by Eddie Howe’s Bournemouth last weekend and manager Dean Smith was not happy with the performance of the officials.
The defeat leaves Villa in 17th place in the Premier League table, one point away from the relegation zone.
As reported on the Express and Star, Smith felt that Villa deserved to have a penalty when Bjorn Engels was hit in the face as he headed the ball over the crossbar.
Smith felt that VAR should have intervened and awarded a spot-kick, believing that if the incident occurred anywhere else on the pitch then a free-kick would have been awarded.
Some Villa fans feel that Smith is deflecting the attention away from a poor display from his team and want him to focus on improving performance levels, rather than complaining about decisions not going his way.
They took to Twitter to respond to the manager’s comments and it’s fair to say that they were not pleased.
Twitter: @villareport Clutching at straws dean… Not good enough. bottom line (@SteveFr94038629)
Twitter: @villareport He needs to stop making excuses. Should have been a pen, but it wasn’t – get over it. (@Ski308)
Twitter: @villareport I wish dean smith would stop using the referees and VAR as excuses to hide how poor the players were (@wmvillans)
Twitter: @villareport Let’s try not acting like Leicester by making excuses.
We were out-played from start to finish. Simple as that. (@JackWhidden3)
Twitter: @villareport Bad excuse!!!! We are not good enough is the right answer!!!!! (@Tony89405449)
