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Merely a quarter of an hour after the club released the news of their manager's shock departure via a brief five-paragraph statement, the howitzer arrived, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

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

The man he convinced to come to the team when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and required being in their place. And the figure he once more relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of his critique, the jaw-dropping comeback of Martin O'Neill was almost an after-thought.

Twenty years after his exit from the club, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an continuous circuit of appearances and the playing of all his past successes at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Based on things he has expressed recently, he has been keen to secure another job. He will view this one as the perfect chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the environment where he experienced such glory and adulation.

Would he relinquish it readily? 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 moment.

All-out Attempt at Character Assassination

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

It was a forceful endeavor at character assassination, a branding of him as untrustful, a source of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the cost of others," wrote he.

For a person who prizes decorum and sets high importance in business being done with discretion, if not outright privacy, this was another example of how abnormal things have grown at the club.

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

He never participate in team AGMs, dispatching his son, his son, in his place. He seldom, if ever, does interviews about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's slow to speak out.

He has been known on an rare moment to support the club with private messages to news outlets, but no statement is heard in the open.

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

The official line from the club is that he resigned, but reviewing Desmond's criticism, carefully, one must question why did he allow it to get such a critical point?

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

Desmond has charged him of spinning information in open forums that were inconsistent with the facts.

He claims Rodgers' statements "have contributed to a toxic environment around the team and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the executive team and the board. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

What an extraordinary allegation, that is. Lawyers might be preparing as we speak.

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

To return to happier times, they were close, the two men. The manager praised Desmond at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to him and, really, to nobody else.

This was Desmond who drew the heat when his returned happened, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive appointment, the return of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as other supporters would have described it, the return of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for another club.

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the supporters became a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a point when his goals came in contact with Celtic's business model, though.

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened again, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow way the team conducted their transfer business, the endless delay for prospects to be secured, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he stated about the need for what he termed "agility" in the transfer window. The fans agreed with him.

Even when the organization spent unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the £9m Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well so far, with one already having left - the manager demanded more and more and, often, he did it in public.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his next media briefing he would typically minimize it and nearly reverse what he said.

Internal issues? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like he was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that purportedly originated from a insider close to the organization. It claimed that the manager was damaging the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was managing his exit strategy.

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

Supporters were angered. They now saw him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his honor because his directors wouldn't back his plans to bring success.

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

By then it was plain the manager was shedding the backing of the individuals in charge.

The frequent {gripes