Watch the referee celebrate Spurs scoring against Aston Villa

Leading English referee Mike Dean caused a storm on social media when he appeared to celebrate Tottenham’s opening goal against Aston Villa!

A vine from the match, shown live on Sky Sports, shows the referee running towards goal with both arms up as Mousa Dembele bears down on Brad Guzan’s goal.

As the ball hits the back of the net Dean turns around, at exactly the same time as Dembele, and appears to be punching the air as Spurs take the lead.

With cameras covering every angle the fairly routine motions of the referee have been bounced around all sorts of social media channels deflecting attention away from another likely Aston Villa defeat as they find themselves further and further away from the safety of fourth bottom place.

Dean is no stranger to controversy with Arsenal fans launching a petition to have him banned from their matches following their defeat at Chelsea earlier this season.

Over 100,000 fans signed up to the petition for: “After many poor decisions that go against Arsenal when Mike Dean is refereeing the game, it is time that we get an inquiry to his ability to referee Arsenal games. Major incidents have occurred in recent and past games that show he is inept at refereeing at this level now. The recent events at Chelsea V Arsenal (19/09/15) highlight this where two Arsenal players were dismissed while Diego Costa the opposition player made 4 straight red card incidents and was show one yellow card only.”

After tonight’s incident the suspicions of Arsenal fans are likely to be looking closely at Dean.