🔗 Share this article

Merely a quarter of an hour following the club issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the howitzer landed, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious fury.

In 551-words, key investor Desmond savaged his former ally.

This individual he convinced to join the club when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting in their place. Plus the man he once more relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for another club in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of his critique, the astonishing comeback of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a time. Based on comments he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been eager to secure another job. He'll view this role as the perfect opportunity, a present from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the place where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Would he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. The club might well make a call to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the moment.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - however strange as it is - can be parked because the most significant shocking moment was the brutal manner Desmond described the former manager.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a branding of him as untrustful, a source of untruths, a spreader of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the expense of others," stated he.

For a person who prizes propriety and places great store in dealings being conducted with discretion, if not complete secrecy, this was a further example of how abnormal things have grown at the club.

Desmond, the club's dominant presence, operates in the background. The remote leader, the individual with the authority to make all the important decisions he pleases without having the obligation of justifying them in any public forum.

He never attend team AGMs, dispatching his son, Ross, in his place. He seldom, if ever, does media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in tone. And still, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an rare moment to defend the organization with private missives to media organisations, but no statement is made in the open.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to remain. And that's just what he went against when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

The official line from the team is that he resigned, but reviewing his invective, line by line, one must question why he permit it to reach such a critical point?

If the manager is guilty of every one of the things that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why had been the manager not dismissed?

Desmond has accused him of spinning things in open forums that were inconsistent with reality.

He claims his words "played a part to a toxic environment around the club and fuelled hostility towards members of the management and the board. A portion of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and improper."

Such an remarkable charge, indeed. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

'Rodgers' Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Model Once More'

To return to better times, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised the shareholder at every turn, thanked him every chance. Brendan deferred to Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

This was the figure who took the criticism when his comeback happened, after the previous manager.

It was the most controversial hiring, the return of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as some other supporters would have described it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Over time, the manager employed the persuasion, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the fans became a love-in once more.

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

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened again, with added intensity, over the last year. He spoke openly about the sluggish process the team went about their transfer business, the interminable waiting for prospects to be landed, then missed, 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 transfer window. Supporters concurred with him.

Despite the organization spent record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have performed well so far, with one since having departed - the manager pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion within the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his next news conference he would typically downplay it and almost reverse what he said.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like Rodgers was engaging in a risky game.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that purportedly came from a source close to the organization. It said that the manager was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

The fans were angered. They then viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his board members wouldn't support his vision to achieve success.

The leak was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to harm him, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. If there was a examination then we heard nothing further about it.

At that point it was clear the manager was shedding the support of the individuals in charge.

The frequent {gripes