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Just fifteen minutes following the club released the announcement of their manager's surprising resignation via a perfunctory short statement, the bombshell landed, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious anger.

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

This individual he convinced to join the team when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and required being in their place. Plus the man he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for another club in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of his critique, the astonishing return of Martin O'Neill was practically an after-thought.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his recent life was given over to an unending series of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a time. Considering comments he has expressed lately, he has been keen to secure a new position. He will see this role as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the environment where he enjoyed such glory and praise.

Will he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well make a call to sound out their ex-manager, but the new appointment will serve as a balm for the moment.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the most significant 'wow!' development was the harsh manner Desmond described Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of untruths, a spreader of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," wrote he.

For somebody who prizes decorum and places great store in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not complete privacy, this was a further example of how abnormal situations have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's most powerful figure, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the power to take all the important decisions he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He never attend club AGMs, dispatching his son, Ross, instead. He seldom, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in nature. And still, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to support the organization with private messages to news outlets, but no statement is made in public.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to remain. And it's just what he went against when launching full thermonuclear on the manager on Monday.

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

If Rodgers is culpable of all of the things that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it's fair to ask why had been the coach not removed?

Desmond has charged him of distorting things in open forums that were inconsistent with the facts.

He says his statements "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the club and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the management and the directors. A portion of the abuse aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

What an extraordinary charge, indeed. Lawyers might be preparing as we speak.

His Ambition Clashed with the Club's Model Again

Looking back to better times, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers lauded Desmond at every turn, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Brendan respected Dermot and, really, to no one other.

It was the figure who drew the criticism when Rodgers' returned happened, after the previous manager.

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

The shareholder had his support. Over time, the manager employed the charm, achieved the victories and the honors, and an fragile peace with the supporters became a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a point when Rodgers' ambition clashed with Celtic's business model, however.

It happened in his first incarnation and it happened again, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the sluggish process Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable waiting for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the case as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he spoke about the need for what he called "flexibility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Despite the club splurged record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the costly another player and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have performed well so far, with Idah since having departed - Rodgers pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity within the team and then walked away. Upon questioning about his comments at his next news conference he would typically minimize it and almost contradict what he said.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous game.

Earlier this year there was a report in a publication that purportedly originated from a source associated with the organization. It claimed that the manager was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be there and he was arranging his way out, this was the tone of the article.

Supporters were angered. They then viewed him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his honor because his directors did not support his plans to bring success.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to harm him, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be removed. If there was a examination then we heard no more about it.

By then it was clear the manager was losing the support of the people above him.

The frequent {gripes