Sunderland manager Phil Parkinson has admitted that the officials were right to rule out a Luke O'Nien's equaliser for the Black Cats in their 1-0 defeat to Coventry City for offside on Sunday afternoon.

The Black Cats had fallen behind to Matt Gooden's second-minute strike, but after plenty of possession and missed chances, it looked as though the visitors had got their equaliser when Max Power's shot deflected in off O'Nien with around a quarter of an hour remaining.

It would however, be disappointment for Sunderland, as that goal was eventually ruled out following a discussion between referee and linesman, costing Parkinson's side a potentially precious point in the battle for League One promotion.

Speaking after the game about the decision to rule out his side's goal, Parkinson was unable to deny that the right call had been made, as he told The Chronicle: “It looks like it was the right decision, although I’m not sure how they [the officials] came to it.

“Max has had a shot and it looks like it has hit Luke on the heel and it has deflected it past the keeper, and he [O’Nien] was in an offside position so we can’t complain about the call.”

Parkinson was however, more frustrated to see his side concede an early goal for the second game in a row, following the one they conceded inside five minutes against Fleetwood in midweek, and discussing the repeat of that setback, the Sunderland boss added: “It’s very annoying after conceding early against Fleetwood on Tuesday night.

“Coventry are a good team and we knew it was always going to be a tight game with very little in it, but when you give away a goal like that it gives the other team a huge lift.”

Following that defeat, Sunderland are now fifth in the League One table, four points adrift of the automatic promotion places ahead of the visit of Gillingham to the Stadium of Light on Saturday afternoon.

The Verdict

In fairness to the officials, it looked as though they came to the decision to disallow Sunderland's goal on Sunday really well given the circumstances.

From the angle he was stood at, it appears as though it was difficult for the linesman to discern whether or not O'Nien was interfering with play from the offside position he was in.

Once the referee was able to confirm he had done that by touching the ball, it did not take long at all for it to be established that the goal would not stand, allowing the game to move along qucikly as everybody wants.

That however is unlikely to be of little consolation to Sunderland, although they can still take heart from the fact that they are well in the battle for promotion in spite of this defeat.