Aberdeen loan signing Ryan Christie has apologised to supporters for posting insulting messages about the Dons on social media five years ago.
The 21-year-old deleted his Twitter account on Tuesday night after a post from 2012 using foul language and referencing sheep resurfaced soon after the news broke about his loan move to the Dons from Celtic.
Christie was a youth player at Caley Thistle when he posted the comment on the day Hibernian defeated Aberdeen 2-1 at Hampden to reach the Scottish Cup final.
The Scotland under-21 international, son of former Caley Thistle player and manager Charlie, is determined to show he is now fully committed to the Aberdeen cause, starting tomorrow night against Dundee.
He said: “It looks bad, but when I tweeted it I was very young and I can’t even remember doing it.
“When I was growing up in Inverness there was a rivalry with Aberdeen and I would have been winding up my Aberdeen-supporting mates.
“Looking at it now, I apologise to anyone who has taken offence by it.
“But I hope nobody reads into it too much, I was only 17 and my Twitter is long gone now.
“It’s up to me now to win people over. If anyone is annoyed with me the challenge is to win them back with my performances.
“I’ve not spoken to my dad yet, I talked to him when the chance to move here came up because we discussed that.
“But it was the other night that the Twitter thing really started to come out so I’m sure I’ll get a telling off from him the next time we do speak.”
Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes has also given his backing to the player and believes the former Inverness midfielder will play a key role in the second half of the season.
He said: “I see it more as a passion for his own team at the time because Inverness were around the same area of the league.
“I’m more interested in the mature 21-year-old Ryan Christie than the 17-year-old one.
“I think anyone at 17 has maybe said or done things that weren’t right.
“He was really keen to come here, he showed a real desire to sign for Aberdeen so that’s all that matters to me.
“He could have gone to other clubs or stayed at Celtic, but he was desperate to come here.
“What he said was a long time ago and I think it would be wrong to take it too seriously.
“We have a brilliant player coming in and all we’re interested in is what he does for us.
“I think he will be an excellent signing for us and to try to muddy the waters with things like ‘we shouldn’t be taking players from Celtic’ or ‘look what he said in the past’ is wrong.
“We need to look at the bigger picture, we couldn’t go out and sign a player of Ryan’s quality so this is a great deal for the club.
“And I’m sure the Aberdeen supporters will love watching him play over the next few months.”