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Merely a quarter of an hour following Celtic issued the announcement of their manager's shock departure via a brief five-paragraph statement, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious fury.

In 551-words, major shareholder Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

The man he persuaded to come to the club when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and needed putting back in a box. Plus the man he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of Desmond's takedown, the jaw-dropping comeback of the former boss was almost an after-thought.

Twenty years after his exit from the club, and after a large part of his latter years was given over 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.

For now - and perhaps for a time. Based on comments he has expressed recently, he has been eager to get another job. He will see this role as the perfect chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such glory and adulation.

Will he give it up readily? It seems unlikely. Celtic could possibly reach out to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will serve as a balm for the moment.

All-out Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it is - can be parked because the biggest shocking development was the harsh way Desmond described Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded attempt at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the expense of others," stated Desmond.

For somebody who values decorum and places great store in dealings being conducted with discretion, if not outright secrecy, this was a further example of how abnormal situations have grown at Celtic.

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

He never attend club AGMs, sending his offspring, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to defend the club with confidential missives to news outlets, but nothing is made in public.

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

The official line from the club is that Rodgers resigned, but reading his criticism, carefully, one must question why he permit it to reach such a critical point?

Assuming the manager is culpable of all of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it's fair to ask why was the coach not removed?

He has accused him of spinning things in public that did not tally with the facts.

He claims his words "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the club and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the directors. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

Such an extraordinary allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be preparing as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Ambition Conflicted with Celtic's Strategy Again

Looking back to better times, they were tight, the two men. The manager praised Desmond at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan respected him and, really, to no one other.

It was Desmond who drew the criticism when Rodgers' returned happened, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most divisive hiring, the return 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 difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Over time, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the wins and the honors, and an uneasy truce with the fans became a affectionate relationship again.

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

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish process the team went about their player acquisitions, the interminable waiting for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was frequently the case as far as he was believed.

Time and again he spoke about the need for what he termed "flexibility" in the transfer window. Supporters agreed with him.

Even when the organization spent record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the costly another player and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have performed well to date, with one since having left - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in public.

He set a bomb about a internal disunity within the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his subsequent news conference he would usually minimize it and almost reverse what he said.

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

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that purportedly came from a source close to the club. It said that Rodgers was harming the team with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his exit strategy.

He desired not to be present and he was engineering his way out, that was the tone of the article.

Supporters were angered. They then viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his honor because his board members did not back his vision to bring success.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was meant to hurt Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. If there was a probe then we heard no more about it.

At that point it was clear Rodgers was shedding the support of the people above him.

The frequent {gripes