🔗 Share this article

Just a quarter of an hour following Celtic issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a brief short communication, the howitzer arrived, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

Through an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot Desmond savaged his former ally.

This individual he convinced to come to the club when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. Plus the figure he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the recent offseason.

Such was the severity of his takedown, the astonishing return of Martin O'Neill was almost an after-thought.

Two decades after his departure from the club, and after a large part of his latter years was dedicated to an continuous series of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Considering things he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been eager to secure a new position. He'll see this one as the perfect opportunity, a gift from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the environment where he enjoyed such glory and adulation.

Would he relinquish it readily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly reach out to sound out their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the time being.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' development was the brutal manner Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the expense of everyone else," stated he.

For a person who values propriety and places great store in dealings being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, this was a further illustration of how abnormal things have become at Celtic.

The major figure, the club's dominant figure, operates in the background. The remote leader, the individual with the power to take all the major calls he pleases without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He never participate in club annual meetings, sending his son, Ross, instead. He seldom, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to defend the organization with private missives to news outlets, but no statement is heard in the open.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to remain. And it's exactly what he contradicted when going full thermonuclear on the manager on that day.

The official line from the club is that he stepped down, but reading Desmond's criticism, carefully, one must question why did he permit it to get this far down the line?

Assuming Rodgers is guilty of all of the accusations that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to ask why was the coach not removed?

He has charged him of spinning things in open forums that were inconsistent with reality.

He says his words "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the club and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the management and the directors. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

What an remarkable allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

His Ambition Conflicted with Celtic's Strategy Again

Looking back to better days, they were close, the two men. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Brendan respected Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who took the heat when his returned happened, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other supporters would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' back. Over time, the manager turned on the persuasion, achieved the wins and the honors, and an uneasy truce with the supporters became a affectionate relationship again.

There was always - always - going to be a moment when his ambition clashed with the club's business model, however.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with added intensity, over the last year. He publicly commented about the sluggish process Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable waiting for prospects to be secured, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

Time and again he spoke about the necessity for what he called "agility" in the market. Supporters agreed with him.

Despite the club spent record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it to date, with one already having departed - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in public.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his subsequent media briefing he would usually downplay it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like he was engaging in a risky strategy.

A few months back there was a report in a publication that purportedly came from a source associated with the club. It claimed that the manager was damaging Celtic with his open criticisms and that his true aim was managing his departure plan.

He didn't want to be there and he was engineering his exit, this was the tone of the article.

Supporters were enraged. They now saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his honor because his board members did not back his plans to bring triumph.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to hurt Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we heard no more about it.

By then it was plain Rodgers was shedding the backing of the individuals in charge.

The regular {gripes