I was wrong to slag off Dons in a tweet... now I need to win over the supporters
ABERDEEN loan signing Ryan Christie apologised yesterday for an offensive Tweet he wrote about his new club almost five years ago — but immediately promised to win over supporters with his performances on the pitch.
Christie, who has joined the Dons from Celtic until the end of the season, admitted posting the message ahead of the Pittodrie side’s Scottish Cup semi-final with Hibernian in April 2012 when he was still a teenager at Inverness Caley Thistle.
The post, which read: ‘C’mon Hibs! I f***ing hate Aberdeen #sheepsh***ing c **** ,’ quickly went viral after news broke of his arrival in the Granite City on Tuesday night.
At his unveiling yesterday, the 21-year-old blamed youthful naivety for his actions.
He said: ‘It looks bad, but, when I tweeted it, I was very young. I can’t even remember tweeting it, to be honest.
‘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 to 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.’
Joey Barton can certainly attest to the dangers of Twitter, having arrived at Rangers last summer to find Celtic fans had dredged up old posts proclaiming his allegiance to the Parkhead club.
But, when it comes to winning over fans at a new team, young Christie hasn’t given himself the best of starts.
Whether Dons supporters are ready to forgive and forget remains to be seen, but the acid test will surely come when Dundee visit Pittodrie tomorrow night.
It will be a tense baptism for the player if, as expected, he makes his debut in the Premiership clash.
Of equal concern to Christie, however, is the stern rebuke he’s sure to get over the offending Tweet from his dad, Caley Thistle legend Charlie.
‘I’ve not spoken to my dad yet,’ he said. ‘I talked to him when the chance to move here came up and we discussed that. But it was on Tuesday 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 boss Derek McInnes was quick to defend his young loan arrival yesterday.
Despite Christie’s faux pas, McInnes is just delighted with the capture of such a gifted playmaker as James Maddison’s return from Norwich City remains shrouded in doubt.
‘I think anyone at 17 has maybe said or done things that weren’t right,’ said McInnes, who is also still hoping to land former St Johnstone striker Stevie May on loan from Preston North End.
‘Ryan was really keen to come here. He showed a real desire to sign for Aberdeen, so that’s all that matters to me.
‘We asked about him last summer, but Brendan Rodgers wanted to assess everyone at Celtic because he wasn’t long in the door.
‘I asked about him again when we were both in Dubai recently and it has moved on quickly in the last few days.’
This is, in fact, the second time Celtic boss Rodgers has loaned a player to McInnes.
When he was manager of Liverpool, he lent him the services of gifted goalkeeper Danny Ward, who ended up playing for Wales as they charged to the semi-finals of Euro 2016.
This latest loan deal is a sign that Rodgers knows his player will be well looked after between now and the end of the campaign.
And Christie admitted he was as keen as the Celtic manager to make the move after struggling for game time amid the intense competition for places at Parkhead.
‘The manager at Celtic told me he wanted me to come on loan and play games,’ said Christie, who will sit out the match between his new and parent clubs in Glasgow next midweek.
‘I am here to play. Aberdeen will be a great place to do that, and, hopefully, I can do well here and prove myself again, then go back to Celtic in the summer with experience.
‘I can’t play against Celtic, but I’m not cup-tied, even though I was on the bench against Albion Rovers last weekend.
‘I was worried that I might have been, but it’s been checked and I’m okay, which is something I’m delighted about because I’d love to go on a cup run here at Aberdeen.’