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Just a quarter of an hour following Celtic issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock departure via a brief short statement, the howitzer landed, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

Through an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

The man he convinced to come to the club when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. And the figure he once more relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of Desmond's takedown, the astonishing return of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was dedicated to an continuous series of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his past successes at the team, Martin O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

For now - and perhaps for a time. Based on things he has expressed lately, he has been keen to secure a new position. He'll view this one as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he experienced such glory and adulation.

Will he relinquish it easily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well reach out to sound out their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the moment.

All-out Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the biggest shocking moment was the brutal manner the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

It was a forceful endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the cost of others," wrote Desmond.

For somebody who prizes decorum and places great store in dealings being done with discretion, if not outright secrecy, this was a further illustration of how unusual situations have grown at the club.

Desmond, the club's most powerful presence, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the power to make all the important calls he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any public forum.

He does not participate in team annual meetings, sending his son, Ross, in his place. He seldom, if ever, gives media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to defend the club with confidential missives to news outlets, but nothing is heard in public.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to be. And it's just what he contradicted when launching full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the team is that Rodgers resigned, but reviewing Desmond's invective, carefully, one must question why did he permit it to get such a critical point?

If the manager is culpable of every one of the accusations that Desmond is claiming he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to inquire why was the coach not dismissed?

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

He claims Rodgers' statements "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the club and encouraged hostility towards members of the management and the board. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

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

His Aspirations Conflicted with the Club's Model Again

Looking back to happier times, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers praised Desmond at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers respected him and, truly, to nobody else.

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

This marked the most controversial appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have described it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had his support. Over time, the manager employed the persuasion, delivered the wins and the honors, and an fragile truce with the supporters turned into a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a point when his goals came in contact with Celtic's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with bells on, over the last year. He spoke openly about the slow way 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.

Time and again he spoke about the need for what he called "flexibility" in the transfer window. The fans concurred with him.

Despite the club splurged unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the £9m another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it to date, with Idah since having left - the manager pushed for increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity within the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his next media briefing he would typically minimize it and nearly contradict what he stated.

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

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly came from a source associated with the club. It said that Rodgers was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was orchestrating his departure plan.

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

The fans were enraged. They now saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his honor because his board members did not back his vision to achieve success.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to harm him, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

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

The regular {gripes