🔗 Share this article

Merely fifteen minutes following Celtic issued the announcement of their manager's shock resignation via a brief short communication, the bombshell arrived, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent fury.

In an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

The man he persuaded to come to the club when Rangers were gaining ground in 2016 and required being back in a box. Plus the figure he again turned to after the previous manager departed to another club in the recent offseason.

So intense was the severity of his takedown, the jaw-dropping comeback of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was dedicated to an continuous circuit of appearances and the playing of all his old hits at the team, Martin O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

Currently - and perhaps for a time. Considering things he has said lately, he has been eager to get a new position. He'll see this one as the perfect opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such success and adulation.

Will he relinquish it easily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic might well make a call to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will serve as a balm for the moment.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' development was the harsh way Desmond wrote of the former manager.

It was a forceful endeavor at defamation, a labeling of him as deceitful, a source of untruths, a spreader of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's wish for self-preservation at the cost of others," wrote Desmond.

For a person who prizes propriety and places great store in dealings being conducted with discretion, if not complete privacy, this was another illustration of how unusual situations have grown at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's dominant figure, moves in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the authority to take all the important decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He never attend team AGMs, sending his son, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

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

This is precisely how he's wanted it to be. And that's exactly what he contradicted when going all-out attack on the manager on Monday.

The directive from the club is that he stepped down, but reviewing Desmond's criticism, carefully, you have to wonder why did he allow it to reach such a critical point?

If Rodgers is culpable of all of the things that Desmond is claiming he's responsible for, then it's fair to ask why had been the manager not dismissed?

He has charged him of spinning things in open forums that did not tally with the facts.

He claims his words "have contributed to a hostile atmosphere around the team and fuelled animosity towards members of the management and the board. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

What an extraordinary allegation, indeed. Lawyers might be preparing as we speak.

His Aspirations Clashed with Celtic's Strategy Again

Looking back to better days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded Desmond at every turn, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Rodgers respected him and, truly, to nobody else.

It was the figure who took the heat when his returned occurred, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most controversial appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have described it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

The shareholder had his support. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the charm, delivered the wins and the honors, and an uneasy truce with the fans turned into a love-in again.

There was always - consistently - going to be a point when his ambition came in contact with Celtic's operational approach, however.

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened again, with added intensity, recently. He spoke openly about the sluggish process the team conducted their transfer business, the interminable waiting for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was believed.

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

Even when the club spent record amounts of money in a calendar year on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly another player and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have performed well to date, with one since having departed - the manager demanded more and more and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion within the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his subsequent news conference he would usually minimize it and nearly contradict what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, all are united, he'd claim. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a risky strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that allegedly came from a source associated with the organization. It said that Rodgers was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his departure plan.

He desired not to be there and he was engineering his exit, that was the implication of the story.

The fans were enraged. They then viewed him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his board members wouldn't support his vision to bring triumph.

The leak was damaging, naturally, and it was meant to harm Rodgers, which it did. He called for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be removed. Whether there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

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

The regular {gripes