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Merely a quarter of an hour following the club released the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a perfunctory short communication, the howitzer landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

Through an extensive statement, key investor Desmond savaged his former ally.

This individual he persuaded to join the club when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and needed putting in their place. And the man he once more turned to after the previous manager left for another club in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the astonishing return of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

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

Currently - and maybe for a while. Considering things he has said lately, he has been keen to secure another job. He will view this one as the ultimate opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he enjoyed such glory and adulation.

Would he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well make a call to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will serve as a balm for the time being.

All-out Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - however strange as it may be - can be set aside because the biggest shocking development was the brutal manner Desmond described Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," wrote Desmond.

For somebody who values decorum and places great store in business being done with confidentiality, if not complete privacy, this was a further illustration of how unusual things have grown at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's most powerful presence, moves in the background. The remote leader, the individual with the authority to take all the major decisions he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any public forum.

He never attend club AGMs, dispatching his son, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in nature. And still, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the club 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 it's just what he went against when launching full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the team is that he stepped down, but reviewing his invective, carefully, one must question why he permit it to reach such a critical point?

If Rodgers is guilty of all of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why was the manager not removed?

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

He says Rodgers' statements "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the team and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the board. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

What an remarkable allegation, indeed. Lawyers might be mobilising as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Clashed with the Club's Model Again

Looking back to happier days, they were close, the two men. Rodgers praised Desmond at every turn, thanked him every chance. Brendan deferred to Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

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

It was the most controversial appointment, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other Celtic fans would have described it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the difficulty for Leicester.

The shareholder had his back. Over time, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, delivered the wins and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the fans turned into a affectionate relationship again.

There was always - 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 once more, with bells on, recently. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish way the team conducted their transfer business, the interminable waiting for targets to be landed, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

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

Even when the club splurged unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well to date, with Idah already having departed - Rodgers pushed for increased resources and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity inside the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his next news conference he would typically downplay it and almost reverse what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like he was engaging in a risky game.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that allegedly originated from a source associated with the organization. It said that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be present and he was arranging his exit, this was the implication of the story.

Supporters were angered. They now saw him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his honor because his board members did not back his plans to achieve triumph.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was meant to harm him, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. Whether there was a examination then we heard no more about it.

By then it was plain the manager was shedding the support of the people in charge.

The regular {gripes