Villa fume at Jermaine Pennant 'dive'

Stoke's Jermaine Pennant was at the centre of a dive storm today after Villa's Stiliyan Petrov accused him of playing for the free-kick which led to their winner.

TV replays showed Petrov made minimal - if any - contact with the winger, who was making his Potters debut as a substitute, as the game entered its dying seconds at the Britannia Stadium.

But referee Lee Probert gave a foul and, from the resulting free-kick, Stoke went on to make it 2-1 via Robert Huth with virtually the last kick of the game.

Petrov said: "I never accuse people of diving, I'd never do that, but he played for it and got it. It was a bad call. You get things like that. It was disappointing.

"The referees are saying this and that but when you come to the game it is totally different.

"It is frustrating, but we see a split second, the referee makes a decision and sometimes it is right, sometimes it is wrong.

"People can talk about having seen it from 20 cameras so they can decide, but I hope next time the decision will be for us."

But Petrov insisted Villa can only blame themselves for the result, which made it two wins and two defeats in the Premier League so far this term.

He added: "There is no point blaming this and that, we must blame us.

"We were 1-0 up, comfortable in the game and they were not creating much. But we couldn't see it through."

Petrov felt it was harsh on his team, who had led through Stewart Downing's 35th-minute diving header.

He added: "We played really well. We gave our best, we created chances, opportunities, we could have scored another goal in the first half.

"We had the lead and we didn't keep it."