🔗 Share this article

Merely fifteen minutes after the club released the announcement of their manager's surprising resignation via a perfunctory five-paragraph statement, the howitzer landed, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent anger.

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

The man he convinced to come to the team when their rivals were gaining ground in that period and needed putting back in a box. And the figure he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of his critique, the astonishing return of the former boss was almost an after-thought.

Two decades after his departure from the club, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an unending circuit of appearances and the playing of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Based on things he has said recently, O'Neill has been keen to secure another job. He will see this role as the perfect opportunity, a present from the club's legacy, a return to the environment where he experienced such glory and adulation.

Would he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. The club might well make a call to sound out their ex-manager, but the new appointment will serve as a soothing presence for the time being.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the most significant 'wow!' development was the brutal manner Desmond wrote of the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded attempt at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," stated he.

For somebody who values propriety and places great store in business being done with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, this was another example of how unusual things have become at Celtic.

The major figure, the club's most powerful presence, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to take all the important decisions he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He never attend club AGMs, sending his son, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's slow to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to defend the club with private messages to news outlets, but no statement is made in public.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to be. And it's just what he contradicted when going all-out attack on the manager on that day.

The official line from the club is that Rodgers resigned, but reviewing his criticism, line by line, you have to wonder why did he permit it to get such a critical point?

If Rodgers is culpable of all of the accusations that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it's fair to ask why had been the manager not dismissed?

Desmond has accused him of distorting things in public that were inconsistent with the facts.

He says his words "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the club and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the executive team and the board. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unwarranted and improper."

Such an remarkable charge, that is. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Clashed with the Club's Strategy Once More'

Looking back to better times, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised the shareholder at every turn, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Brendan deferred to him and, truly, to no one other.

This was Desmond who took the heat when his comeback occurred, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other supporters would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the difficulty for another club.

Desmond had Rodgers' back. Over time, Rodgers employed the persuasion, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the fans became a affectionate relationship once more.

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

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired once more, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the sluggish way Celtic went about their transfer business, the endless waiting for targets to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he spoke about the need for what he termed "agility" in the transfer window. The fans agreed with him.

Despite the organization spent record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the £9m Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with Idah already having departed - the manager pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his next news conference he would typically downplay it and almost contradict what he said.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It looked like he was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a report in a publication that purportedly came from a source close to the club. It claimed that Rodgers was damaging the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He desired not to be present and he was arranging his exit, that was the tone of the article.

The fans were angered. They then saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his board members wouldn't support his plans to bring success.

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

At that point it was plain Rodgers was shedding the support of the individuals above him.

The regular {gripes