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Merely a quarter of an hour following the club released the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a brief five-paragraph communication, the howitzer landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious fury.

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

The man he persuaded to join the team when Rangers were gaining ground in 2016 and required being back in a box. And the figure he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the severity of Desmond's critique, the jaw-dropping comeback of Martin O'Neill was practically an after-thought.

Twenty years after his departure from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was dedicated to an continuous circuit of appearances and the playing of all his past successes at the team, Martin O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

Currently - and maybe for a time. Based on things he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been eager to get a new position. He'll see this role as the perfect chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he enjoyed such success and praise.

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

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be set aside because the most significant 'wow!' development was the brutal manner the shareholder described Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded attempt at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," stated he.

For a person who values propriety and sets high importance in business being done with discretion, if not outright secrecy, this was another example of how unusual situations have grown at Celtic.

The major figure, the club's dominant figure, moves in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the authority to take all the important decisions he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any open setting.

He never participate in club AGMs, dispatching his offspring, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about the team unless they're glowing in tone. And still, he's reluctant to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the club with confidential missives to news outlets, but nothing is heard in public.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to be. And it's exactly what he went against when going all-out attack on Rodgers on that day.

The official line from the club is that he stepped down, but reviewing his criticism, line by line, you have to wonder why did he permit it to reach this far down the line?

Assuming the manager is culpable of all of the things that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to ask why was the manager not removed?

He has accused him of distorting things in public that were inconsistent with reality.

He claims his words "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the club and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the management and the directors. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unwarranted and improper."

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

'Rodgers' Ambition Conflicted with Celtic's Model Once More'

To return to happier times, they were close, the two men. Rodgers lauded Desmond at every turn, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Brendan respected Dermot and, really, to no one other.

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

It was the most controversial appointment, the return of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have described it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Over time, the manager turned on the persuasion, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the supporters became a love-in once more.

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

This occurred in his initial tenure and it transpired once more, with added intensity, recently. He publicly commented about the slow way the team went about their transfer business, the endless delay for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was believed.

Time and again he stated about the necessity for what he called "flexibility" in the market. Supporters agreed with him.

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with one already having departed - Rodgers pushed for more and more and, often, he did it in openly.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the team and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent media briefing he would usually downplay it and nearly contradict what he stated.

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

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that purportedly originated from a insider associated with the club. It claimed that the manager was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his departure plan.

He desired not to be there and he was arranging his way out, this was the tone of the article.

The fans were enraged. They then viewed him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his board members did not support his plans to bring triumph.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was intended to hurt Rodgers, which it accomplished. He called for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be dismissed. If there was a probe then we heard no more about it.

At that point it was clear the manager was losing the support of the people in charge.

The frequent {gripes