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Just a quarter of an hour following the club released the news of their manager's surprising resignation via a brief five-paragraph communication, the bombshell landed, from Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

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

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

Such was the severity of his critique, the astonishing comeback of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Two decades after his departure from the club, and after much of his recent life was given over to an continuous circuit of appearances and the playing of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Based on things he has expressed lately, he has been keen to get a new position. He'll view this one as the ultimate opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he experienced such success and praise.

Will he give it up readily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well make a call to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will serve as a balm for the moment.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - as surreal as it is - can be set aside because the most significant shocking moment was the harsh manner the shareholder described the former manager.

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

For a person who values decorum and sets high importance in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, here was a further illustration of how abnormal situations have grown at Celtic.

The major figure, the organization's most powerful figure, moves in the background. The remote leader, the individual with the authority to make all the important calls he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any public forum.

He never attend club AGMs, sending his offspring, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's slow to speak out.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the organization with private messages to news outlets, but nothing is heard in the open.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to be. And that's just what he contradicted when launching full thermonuclear on the manager on that day.

The directive from the team is that Rodgers resigned, but reviewing Desmond's criticism, carefully, you have to wonder why he allow it to reach such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is guilty of all of the accusations that the shareholder is claiming he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why had been the coach not removed?

Desmond has accused him of distorting things in open forums that were inconsistent with reality.

He says Rodgers' words "have contributed to a hostile atmosphere around the club and fuelled animosity towards individuals of the management and the board. Some of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

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

His Aspirations Conflicted with the Club's Model Again

To return to happier days, they were close, the two men. Rodgers praised Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him every chance. Rodgers deferred to him and, really, to no one other.

It was the figure who drew the heat when Rodgers' comeback occurred, after the previous manager.

This marked the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the returning hero for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Over time, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the wins and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the supporters turned into a love-in again.

There was always - always - going to be a moment when Rodgers' ambition came in contact with the club's business model, though.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened again, with bells on, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow way Celtic conducted their transfer business, the interminable waiting for prospects to be secured, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

Time and again he stated about the need for what he called "flexibility" in the market. The fans agreed with him.

Even when the organization splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the £9m Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well to date, with one since having departed - the manager pushed for increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his next media briefing he would typically minimize it and almost reverse what he said.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous game.

Earlier this year there was a report in a publication that purportedly came from a source associated with the club. It claimed that the manager was damaging the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was managing his departure plan.

He desired not to be there and he was engineering his way out, that was the tone of the story.

Supporters were angered. They now saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his directors did not support his vision to bring success.

This disclosure was poisonous, naturally, and it was meant to harm him, which it accomplished. He called for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

By then it was plain Rodgers was losing the support of the people in charge.

The regular {gripes