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Merely fifteen minutes following Celtic released the announcement of their manager's surprising resignation via a brief five-paragraph communication, the bombshell arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

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

This individual he convinced to join the team when Rangers were gaining ground in that period and required being in their place. And the figure he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of Desmond's critique, the jaw-dropping return of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after much of his recent life was given over to an continuous circuit of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his old hits at the team, Martin O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

Currently - and perhaps for a while. Based on things he has said recently, he has been eager to get another job. He will view this role as the perfect chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such success and adulation.

Will he give it up easily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will serve as a balm for the moment.

'Full-blooded Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - however strange as it is - can be parked because the most significant 'wow!' moment was the brutal way Desmond described the former manager.

It was a forceful attempt at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," wrote Desmond.

For a person who prizes decorum and places great store in business being done with discretion, if not outright privacy, this was another illustration of how abnormal things have grown at the club.

Desmond, the organization's most powerful presence, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to take all the major decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of justifying them in any public forum.

He never participate in club annual meetings, sending his offspring, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's slow to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to defend the club with confidential messages to news outlets, but nothing is made in the open.

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

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

Assuming the manager is guilty of every one of the things that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the coach not dismissed?

Desmond has accused him of distorting information in public that were inconsistent with reality.

He says Rodgers' words "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the club and fuelled hostility towards members of the management and the directors. A portion of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unwarranted and unacceptable."

What an extraordinary allegation, indeed. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

His Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Model Again

Looking back to happier times, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded Desmond at every turn, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Rodgers deferred to Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

This was the figure who took the criticism when Rodgers' returned happened, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most controversial appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for a few or, as other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Gradually, the manager employed the persuasion, delivered the victories and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the fans became a love-in again.

There was always - consistently - going to be a moment when his ambition came in contact with Celtic's operational approach, however.

It happened in his first incarnation and it happened again, with bells on, over the last year. Rodgers publicly commented about the sluggish way the team went about their player acquisitions, the endless delay for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

Time and again he spoke about the necessity for what he called "agility" in the transfer window. Supporters agreed with him.

Even when the organization spent unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have cut it to date, with Idah since having departed - Rodgers pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

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 minimize it and almost reverse what he stated.

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

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly came from a insider associated with the club. It claimed that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He desired not to be there and he was arranging his way out, that was the implication of the article.

Supporters were angered. They now saw him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his honor because his directors did not support his vision to bring success.

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

At that point it was clear Rodgers was losing the support of the individuals in charge.

The regular {gripes