🔗 Share this article

Merely a quarter of an hour after the club issued the announcement of their manager's shock resignation via a perfunctory short statement, the howitzer landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent anger.

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

The man he persuaded to join the team when Rangers were gaining ground in that period and needed putting in their place. And the figure he once more relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's critique, the jaw-dropping return of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Two decades after his exit from the club, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an continuous circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at the team, Martin O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

Currently - and maybe for a time. Considering things he has expressed lately, he has been eager to get another job. He will see this one as the perfect chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such success and praise.

Would he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. Celtic could possibly make a call to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it is - can be set aside because the most significant 'wow!' moment was the harsh manner Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

It was a forceful attempt at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-interest at the expense of others," wrote Desmond.

For somebody who values decorum and sets high importance in dealings being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, this was a further example of how abnormal situations have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's most powerful presence, moves in the background. The remote leader, the one with the authority to make all the important decisions he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He never attend club annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, Ross, instead. He seldom, if ever, does interviews about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to support the organization with private messages to media organisations, but nothing is heard in public.

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

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

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

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

He says his words "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the team and fuelled animosity towards individuals of the management and the directors. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and unacceptable."

What an remarkable charge, indeed. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we discuss.

His Aspirations Conflicted with Celtic's Strategy Again

Looking back to better days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded the shareholder at every turn, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Rodgers deferred to him and, really, to no one other.

It was Desmond who took the criticism when his comeback happened, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most controversial appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as other supporters would have described it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had his back. Over time, Rodgers employed the charm, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the fans became a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a point when his ambition clashed with Celtic's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with bells on, recently. He spoke openly about the slow process Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable waiting for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

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

Even when the club splurged record amounts of money in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the £9m another player and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have cut it to date, with one already having left - the manager pushed for increased resources and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion within the club and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would typically downplay it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, all are united, he'd claim. It looked like Rodgers was playing a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that purportedly originated from a source associated with the club. It said that the manager was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was managing his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be present and he was engineering his exit, this was the implication of the article.

Supporters were enraged. They now viewed him as similar to a martyr who might be removed on his honor because his directors did not support his vision to bring success.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to harm him, which it did. He called for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be removed. If there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

At that point it was plain the manager was shedding the backing of the people in charge.

The frequent {gripes