Choosing not to celebrate against an old club is nothing new in football, and is of course regarded as a strong showing of respect for one’s former employer.

But Yankuba Minteh has caused quite a stir online after the Gambian scored for Brighton against Newcastle at the weekend, choosing a bizarre celebration against the Magpies after his strike despite having never played a competitive minute for us whilst under contract.

And now Minteh has opened up on his choice of celebration on Sunday, and it comes across as a thin dig at us and the club’s hierarchy for selling him in the first place.

Minteh breaks silence over celebration

After opening the scoring at the AMEX on Sunday afternoon, Minteh put his hands together to ‘apologise’ to the Geordies in attendance, similar to what he did in the FA Cup fixture earlier in the year.

This was before swiftly changing to wagging his finger, pointing to the pitch and the Brighton crest whilst his teammates tried to usher him away from the crowd. It was all a bit confusing.

Speaking after the game, the former Feyenoord loanee provided some clarity on the gesture:

“It’s a nice celebration because they were my former team before but now I’m in Brighton and that’s where my focus is,”

“So I try to celebrate for them and make them happy. I was happy with the goal because this is what I dream of every time. If I don’t score in a game, to make a pass. It’s an amazing feeling.”

“Everybody wants to prove the team which sells them (wrong) and I try to do that every time I play against them. I am happy about it.”

Fair comment or unnecessary critique?

Given the circumstances in which Minteh left Newcastle in the first place, a forced departure to appease PSR, it would make sense why all parties should want to move on from the summer and just focus on their own respective teams.

And who’s to decide which player should and shouldn’t celebrate against a club they have some form of connection to?

But Minteh’s comments and celebration haven’t gone down well with either ours or Brighton’s fans, which extended to the Brighton players themselves judging off how the likes of Danny Welbeck tried to get Minteh to get back to the game.

At the end of the day, it’s a Premier League rival’s player celebrating against us after scoring a goal, and whilst it may sting at the moment, it should serve as enough of a catalyst for us to not only build some momentum to close out the season, but end our bad run of form against Brighton the next time we play them.