🔗 Share this article

Just fifteen minutes following the club issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' shock departure via a brief five-paragraph communication, the bombshell landed, courtesy of the major shareholder, with clear signs in obvious anger.

In an extensive statement, key investor Desmond savaged his former ally.

This individual he convinced to come to the team when their rivals were gaining ground in that period and required being in their place. Plus the man he again relied on after the previous manager left for another club in the summer of 2023.

Such was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the astonishing return of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the club, and after much of his recent life was given over to an unending series of appearances and the playing of all his past successes at the team, Martin O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a while. Considering things he has said lately, he has been keen to get another job. He will see this role as the ultimate chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he enjoyed such glory and praise.

Would he relinquish it easily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly reach out to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' moment was the harsh way the shareholder described Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded attempt at defamation, a branding of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the expense of others," stated he.

For somebody who values propriety and places great store in dealings being done with discretion, if not complete privacy, here was a further example of how abnormal things have become at the club.

The major figure, the organization's most powerful presence, operates in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the power to take all the major calls he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He does not participate in club AGMs, sending his son, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to defend the organization with confidential missives to news outlets, but no statement is heard in the open.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to remain. And it's just what he went against when going all-out attack on the manager on that day.

The official line from the team is that he stepped down, but reading Desmond's invective, carefully, you have to wonder why he allow it to reach this far down the line?

If the manager is culpable of every one of the things that Desmond is claiming he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why was the coach not dismissed?

He has charged him of distorting information in open forums that did not tally with the facts.

He says Rodgers' statements "have contributed to a toxic environment around the team and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the management and the board. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

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

His Aspirations Conflicted with the Club's Model Once More'

Looking back to better times, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to him and, truly, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who drew the heat when his comeback happened, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most divisive hiring, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other supporters would have described it, the return of the shameless one, who left them in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had his back. Gradually, the manager turned on the charm, delivered the victories and the trophies, and an fragile peace with the supporters became a affectionate relationship once more.

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

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with bells on, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow process the team conducted their transfer business, the endless delay for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was concerned.

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

Despite the organization splurged unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the £11m one signing, the £9m Adam Idah and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have performed well so far, with one already having departed - the manager demanded more and more and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his next media briefing he would typically downplay it and almost reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, all are united, he'd claim. It looked like Rodgers was playing a risky game.

A few months back there was a report in a publication that allegedly came from a source associated with the organization. It said that the manager was harming the team with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his departure plan.

He didn't want to be there and he was engineering his way out, that was the tone of the story.

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

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was intended to harm him, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

By then it was plain the manager was losing the backing of the individuals above him.

The frequent {gripes