The Way Unrecoverable Collapse Led to a Brutal Separation for Rodgers & Celtic

Merely a quarter of an hour following the club released the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph statement, the howitzer arrived, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent fury.

In 551-words, major shareholder Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

This individual he convinced to join the club when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and required being back in a box. Plus the man he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

Such 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 recent life was given over to an unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his old hits at the team, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

For now - and perhaps for a time. Considering things he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been keen to secure a new position. He will see this one as the ultimate chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he enjoyed such glory and praise.

Will he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. Celtic could possibly reach out to contact their ex-manager, but O'Neill will serve as a soothing presence for the time being.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's return - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the most significant 'wow!' moment was the harsh way the shareholder described the former manager.

It was a full-blooded attempt at defamation, a labeling of him as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's wish for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," wrote Desmond.

For a person who prizes decorum and places great store in business being conducted with discretion, if not outright privacy, this was a further illustration 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 authority to take all the major calls he pleases without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He does not attend team annual meetings, sending his offspring, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the organization with private messages to news outlets, but no statement is heard in public.

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

The official line from the team is that Rodgers resigned, but reviewing his criticism, line by line, one must question why he permit it to reach such a critical point?

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

Desmond has accused him of spinning information in public that did not tally with the facts.

He claims Rodgers' statements "played a part to a hostile environment around the team and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the management and the directors. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unwarranted and unacceptable."

What an extraordinary allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we speak.

His Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Model Again

To return to better times, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager praised Desmond at every turn, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers respected Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

It was Desmond who took the heat when his returned occurred, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive hiring, the return of the returning hero for a few or, as other supporters would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had his back. Over time, the manager turned on the persuasion, delivered the victories and the honors, and an fragile truce with the supporters turned into a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when Rodgers' goals clashed with Celtic's operational approach, though.

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired once more, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish process Celtic conducted their transfer business, the interminable waiting for targets to be landed, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

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

Even when the organization splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the £9m Adam Idah and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have performed well so far, with Idah already having departed - the manager demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He set a bomb about a internal disunity within the club and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his next media briefing he would usually minimize it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, all are united, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous game.

Earlier this year there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly originated from a insider close to the club. It claimed that the manager was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was managing his departure plan.

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

Supporters were enraged. They now saw him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his board members wouldn't back his plans to bring triumph.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was intended to hurt him, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. If there was a probe then we heard nothing further about it.

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

The regular {gripes