🔗 Share this article

Merely fifteen minutes after the club released the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious anger.

Through 551-words, key investor Desmond savaged his old chum.

This individual he convinced to come to the team when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and needed putting in their place. Plus the figure he again turned to after the previous manager departed to Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of his takedown, the jaw-dropping comeback of Martin O'Neill was almost an after-thought.

Two decades after his departure from the organization, and after much of his latter years was given over to an continuous series of appearances and the performance of all his past successes at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and perhaps for a time. Considering things he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been keen to secure another job. He'll see this one as the ultimate opportunity, a present from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such success and adulation.

Would he give it up easily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly reach out to contact Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the time being.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the biggest shocking development was the harsh way Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a branding of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," wrote he.

For a person who values decorum and places great store in dealings being conducted with discretion, if not outright privacy, this was another illustration of how unusual situations have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's most powerful figure, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to make all the important calls he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any public forum.

He does not participate in club annual meetings, dispatching his son, his son, in his place. He seldom, if ever, does interviews about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the organization with private missives to news outlets, but no statement is heard in public.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to remain. And it's exactly what he went against when launching all-out attack on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the club is that Rodgers stepped down, but reviewing his criticism, line by line, you have to wonder why did he allow it to get such a critical point?

If Rodgers is culpable of every one of the things that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to ask why was the manager not dismissed?

Desmond has accused him of distorting things in public that were inconsistent with reality.

He claims his statements "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the club and encouraged hostility towards members of the executive team and the directors. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unwarranted and unacceptable."

Such an remarkable allegation, indeed. Legal representatives might be preparing as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Clashed with Celtic's Strategy Once More'

Looking back to happier times, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers praised the shareholder at every turn, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Rodgers deferred to him and, truly, to nobody else.

It was the figure who drew the criticism when Rodgers' comeback happened, after the previous manager.

This marked the most controversial hiring, the return of the prodigal son for a few or, as other supporters would have put it, the arrival of the shameless one, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

The shareholder had his back. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the charm, achieved the victories and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the supporters became a affectionate relationship again.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when Rodgers' ambition clashed with Celtic's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with added intensity, over the last year. He publicly commented about the slow process Celtic went about their transfer business, the endless delay for prospects to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was concerned.

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

Even when the organization splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the £11m one signing, the £9m Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with Idah since having left - the manager demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the club and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent media briefing he would usually minimize it and nearly contradict what he said.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, all are united, he'd say. It appeared like he was playing a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly came from a insider close to the club. It claimed that the manager was damaging the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was managing his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be there and he was arranging his way out, that was the implication of the article.

Supporters were angered. They now viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his directors did not back his plans to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was intended to hurt him, which it accomplished. He called for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we heard no more about it.

By then it was plain Rodgers was losing the backing of the people in charge.

The frequent {gripes