🔗 Share this article

Just a quarter of an hour after Celtic released the announcement of their manager's shock resignation via a brief short statement, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

Through 551-words, key investor Desmond savaged his former ally.

The man he persuaded to come to the club when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. Plus the man he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the recent offseason.

Such was the ferocity of Desmond's critique, the jaw-dropping comeback of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the club, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an unending series of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at the team, Martin O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and perhaps for a while. Considering things he has said lately, he has been eager to get another job. He'll see this role as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he experienced such glory and praise.

Will he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well reach out to sound out their ex-manager, but O'Neill will serve as a balm for the time being.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

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

This constituted a forceful endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," stated he.

For a person who prizes decorum and sets high importance in business being done with discretion, if not outright secrecy, this was another illustration of how abnormal situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the organization's most powerful figure, operates in the background. The remote leader, the one with the authority to make all the important decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He never attend club AGMs, sending his son, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in tone. And even then, he's reluctant to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the organization with confidential missives to news outlets, but nothing is made in public.

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

The directive from the team is that he resigned, but reading his invective, carefully, you have to wonder why he allow it to reach this far down the line?

If the manager is guilty of all of the things that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to inquire why had been the manager not dismissed?

Desmond has accused him of spinning information in public that did not tally with the facts.

He claims his statements "played a part to a toxic environment around the club and encouraged animosity towards members of the executive team and the directors. Some of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

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

His Aspirations Conflicted with Celtic's Model Again

Looking back to better times, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers respected him and, really, to no one other.

This was the figure who took the criticism when Rodgers' returned happened, after the previous manager.

This marked the most controversial hiring, the reappearance of the returning hero for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the shameless one, who departed in the lurch for another club.

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the fans turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when his ambition clashed with the club's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with bells on, over the last year. Rodgers spoke openly about the slow process Celtic conducted their transfer business, the interminable waiting for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he spoke about the necessity for what he called "flexibility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the organization splurged record amounts of money in a calendar year on the £11m Arne Engels, the costly another player and the £6m further acquisition - all of whom have cut it so far, with one since having left - Rodgers pushed for increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in public.

He set a controversy about a internal disunity inside the team and then walked away. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would usually downplay it and almost contradict what he said.

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

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a source close to the club. It claimed that Rodgers was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

The fans were enraged. They then saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his board members wouldn't support his plans to achieve success.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was intended to harm him, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we heard nothing further about it.

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

The regular {gripes