🔗 Share this article

Just a quarter of an hour after Celtic issued the announcement of their manager's surprising departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph statement, the howitzer landed, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

Through 551-words, major shareholder Dermot Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

This individual he persuaded to join the club when Rangers were gaining ground in that period and needed putting in their place. And the man he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the recent offseason.

Such was the ferocity of Desmond's 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 recent life was dedicated to an continuous series of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his past successes at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a time. Considering comments he has said recently, O'Neill has been keen to secure a new position. He'll see this one as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Will he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. The club might well reach out to sound out their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a soothing presence for the time being.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's return - as surreal as it is - can be parked because the most significant shocking development was the harsh way Desmond wrote of the former manager.

It was a forceful endeavor at character assassination, a labeling of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," stated he.

For somebody who values propriety and places great store in business being conducted with discretion, if not outright secrecy, this was another example of how unusual things have grown at the club.

The major figure, the organization's dominant presence, moves in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the power to take all the important calls he pleases without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He does not participate in team annual meetings, sending his offspring, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about the team unless they're glowing in tone. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to defend the organization with private missives to media organisations, but nothing is heard in public.

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

The official line from the club is that Rodgers stepped down, but reading Desmond's invective, line by line, you have to wonder why he allow it to get this far down the line?

If the manager is culpable of all of the accusations that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it's fair to ask why was the manager not dismissed?

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

He claims his statements "have contributed to a hostile environment around the club and fuelled hostility towards members of the executive team and the board. A portion of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

Such an remarkable charge, indeed. Lawyers might be mobilising as we discuss.

His Aspirations Clashed with the Club's Model Again

To return to better times, they were close, the two men. The manager lauded Desmond at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to him and, truly, to no one other.

It was Desmond who took the heat when his comeback happened, after the previous manager.

This marked the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the shameless one, who departed in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had his support. Gradually, the manager turned on the charm, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the fans became a love-in again.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when his ambition came in contact with the club's operational approach, though.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it transpired once more, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow way Celtic conducted their transfer business, the interminable delay for targets to be landed, then missed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

Time and again he stated about the need for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Despite the organization spent record amounts of money in a calendar year on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it to date, with Idah already having left - Rodgers demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He set a bomb about a internal disunity inside the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his subsequent news conference he would typically downplay it and almost reverse what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, all are united, he'd claim. It appeared like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly came from a insider associated with the club. It claimed that the manager was harming 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, this was the tone of the article.

The fans were enraged. They then viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his honor because his board members wouldn't back his vision to bring success.

The leak was damaging, naturally, and it was meant to harm Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

By then it was clear Rodgers was losing the support of the people above him.

The regular {gripes