🔗 Share this article

Just a quarter of an hour following the club released the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a brief five-paragraph communication, the howitzer landed, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

Through an extensive statement, key investor Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

This individual he persuaded to join the club when their rivals were gaining ground in that period and needed putting back in a box. Plus the figure he once more relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of his takedown, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was practically an after-thought.

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after much of his recent life was given over to an continuous circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at the team, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a time. Considering things he has expressed lately, he has been keen to get another job. He'll see this one as the perfect chance, a present from the club's legacy, a return to the environment where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

Would he give it up easily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly reach out to sound out their ex-manager, but the new appointment will serve as a balm for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - however strange as it is - can be parked because the biggest shocking moment was the brutal manner the shareholder wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the cost of others," stated Desmond.

For somebody who prizes decorum and places great store in dealings being done with discretion, if not complete secrecy, this was another example of how unusual things have become at Celtic.

The major figure, the organization's dominant figure, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the power to make all the major calls he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not participate in team AGMs, dispatching his offspring, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about the team unless they're glowing in tone. And still, he's slow to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to defend the club with private messages to news outlets, but nothing is made in public.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to be. And it's just what he contradicted when launching all-out attack on Rodgers on that day.

The directive from the team is that Rodgers stepped down, but reviewing Desmond's invective, carefully, you have to wonder why did he permit it to get this far down the line?

If the manager is culpable of all of the accusations that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why had been the manager not removed?

He has accused him of distorting information in public that did not tally with the facts.

He says Rodgers' words "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the club and fuelled animosity towards members of the executive team and the board. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

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

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

Looking back to happier days, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers praised Desmond at every turn, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to him and, truly, to no one other.

This was the figure who drew the heat when his returned happened, post-Postecoglou.

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

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Over time, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an fragile peace with the fans became a affectionate relationship again.

There was always - consistently - going to be a point when Rodgers' goals clashed with Celtic's operational approach, however.

It happened in his first incarnation and it happened again, with added intensity, recently. He publicly commented about the slow way the team went about their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he spoke about the necessity for what he called "agility" in the transfer window. Supporters agreed with him.

Despite the club spent unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well so far, with Idah already having left - the manager demanded more and more and, often, he did it in public.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the team and then walked away. When asked about his comments at his next media briefing he would usually minimize it and nearly reverse what he said.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like Rodgers was playing a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly originated from a source close to the organization. It said that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

The fans were angered. They then viewed him as similar to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his directors wouldn't support his plans to bring success.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was meant to harm him, which it did. He called for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

By then it was clear the manager was shedding the backing of the people in charge.

The regular {gripes