A shot from Sunderland striker Darren Bent deflected off a beach ball and past the helpless Jose Reina.
“It was a special situation, but we didn’t play well and so I don’t want to talk about that – we didn’t play well and we made some mistakes, we gave the ball away and we couldn’t take our chances,” said Benitez.
“These things happen, it is a bad situation for us as it was in the middle and very influential but we didn’t play well and that is the main thing for me.”
He replied, when asked if he thought the goals should have been disallowed: “It is a technical question, but if you look at the opposite and the ball went wide, then a goal would not have been given so on this occasion it has to be a goal and that is it.
“We have to do better if we want to win these sort of games.”
