Roy Keane fumes at William Osula's celebration after Newcastle's win over West Ham

Roy Keane's line about William Osula's celebration was the sharpest moment from Newcastle's 3-1 win over West Ham. After scoring, Osula was handed a white glove from the sidelines and performed a Michael Jackson-inspired leg-kick routine, then produced the kind of reply that makes the argument harder to overstate. He scored twice, finished with a 9.3 rating and did it across 85 minutes.

Why Keane's reaction took over the night

Keane did not bother dressing it up. “He can do that in a nightclub tonight in Newcastle,” he said. That is classic Keane, blunt and dismissive, and it instantly turned a routine post-match talking point into the thing everyone would remember first. The celebration looked like the sort of flourish that invites a reaction, and Keane gave him one.

But the football came first. Newcastle scored three times and William Osula scored two of them, including his second in the 65th minute. [Alan Smith] said the early handball incident left West Ham fortunate not to concede, and Tomáš Souček was booked for unsportsmanlike conduct after that controversy. Even so, the bigger story was Osula’s end product, not the dance.

Osula's performance backed up the celebration

There is a fair version of the sceptic's view here, which is that celebrations can look excessive if the performance does not match them. This one did. Osula stayed on for 85 minutes, scored twice, and left with a 9.3 rating that was the best on the pitch. That is why the reaction landed as banter rather than criticism for most people watching, even if Keane clearly wanted to puncture the mood.

For Newcastle, the result sat in a broader picture too. They are 14th on 46 points, so this was about mood and narrative more than a late table push. Anthony Gordon did not get off the bench and was pictured in the Gallowgate End after the match. [Eddie Howe] also said Newcastle would be looking to next year and that the team had played well in Gordon's absence, which underlines where the club's thinking is heading.

The celebration will get replayed, but Osula gave it the sort of on-pitch backing that makes Keane’s complaint easy to shrug off. Newcastle go into the next game with a win, two Osula goals and another reminder that a bit of theatre is easier to accept when it comes with a 3-1 scoreline.