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Just fifteen minutes following the club issued the announcement of their manager's surprising resignation via a perfunctory short statement, the bombshell landed, from Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

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

The man he persuaded to join the club when Rangers were gaining ground in 2016 and required being in their place. And the man he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for another club in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the severity of Desmond's takedown, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the club, and after much of his recent life was dedicated to an continuous series of appearances and the playing of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

Currently - and perhaps for a time. Considering comments he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been eager to get a new position. He'll view this role as the perfect opportunity, a present from the club's legacy, a return to the environment where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Would he relinquish it easily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club could possibly make a call to contact their ex-manager, but O'Neill will act as a soothing presence for the time being.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - as surreal as it is - can be parked because the most significant 'wow!' development was the brutal manner Desmond described the former manager.

It was a forceful attempt at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unacceptable. "One individual's wish for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For somebody who values propriety and places great store in business being done with discretion, if not outright secrecy, here was a further illustration of how abnormal things have become at Celtic.

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

He never attend team annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the club with private messages to media organisations, but no statement is heard in public.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to be. And it's just what he went against when going full thermonuclear on the manager on that day.

The directive from the club is that he resigned, but reading Desmond's invective, carefully, you have to wonder why he permit it to reach this far down the line?

Assuming the manager is guilty of all of the things that the shareholder is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why was the manager not removed?

He has accused him of distorting information in public that were inconsistent with reality.

He claims his statements "played a part to a hostile environment around the team and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the management and the board. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

Such an remarkable allegation, indeed. Lawyers might be preparing as we speak.

His Aspirations Conflicted with Celtic's Model Once More'

Looking back to better days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised Desmond at every turn, thanked him every chance. Brendan respected Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who took the criticism when his returned occurred, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the returning hero for a few or, as other supporters would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

The shareholder had his back. Gradually, Rodgers employed the persuasion, achieved the wins and the honors, and an fragile truce with the supporters turned into a affectionate relationship again.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a moment when his ambition came in contact with Celtic's business model, however.

It happened in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with added intensity, over the last year. He spoke openly about the sluggish process Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable waiting for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he stated about the need for what he called "agility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the organization spent record amounts of funds in a calendar year on the £11m Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m further acquisition - all of whom have cut it so far, with Idah since having left - the manager demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity inside the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his next news conference he would typically minimize it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, all are united, he'd claim. It appeared like Rodgers was engaging in a risky game.

Earlier this year there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly came from a source associated with the club. It said that Rodgers was damaging the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He desired not to be present and he was arranging his way out, this was the implication of the story.

The fans were enraged. They now saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his honor because his directors did not back his plans to bring success.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was intended to harm him, which it did. He called for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

At that point it was plain Rodgers was shedding the support of the people in charge.

The frequent {gripes