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Merely a quarter of an hour following the club released the news of their manager's surprising departure via a brief short communication, the bombshell arrived, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

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

The man he persuaded to come to the club when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting in their place. And the figure he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of his takedown, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was practically an after-thought.

Two decades after his departure from the organization, and after much of his recent life was given over to an continuous series of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a while. Considering things he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been keen to get another job. He will see this one as the perfect opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Would he relinquish it easily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club could possibly make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but the new appointment will serve as a soothing presence for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - however strange as it is - can be set aside because the biggest shocking moment was the brutal manner the shareholder described the former manager.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at defamation, a branding of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," stated Desmond.

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

The major figure, the organization's most powerful presence, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to make all the important decisions he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He does not participate in team AGMs, dispatching his offspring, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about the team unless they're hagiographic in nature. And still, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an rare moment to defend the organization with private missives to media organisations, but no statement is made in public.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to be. And that's just what he went against when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the club is that Rodgers stepped down, but reading Desmond's invective, carefully, one must question why he allow it to get such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of every one of the things that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to inquire why was the coach not dismissed?

He has charged him of distorting things in open forums that were inconsistent with reality.

He says his statements "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the club and encouraged animosity towards members of the management and the board. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and unacceptable."

What an extraordinary allegation, indeed. Lawyers might be mobilising as we speak.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Clashed with the Club's Model Once More'

Looking back to better days, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers praised Desmond at every turn, thanked him every chance. Brendan deferred to him and, really, to nobody else.

This was Desmond who drew the heat when his returned occurred, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the returning hero for a few or, as other supporters would have described it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had his support. Gradually, Rodgers employed the persuasion, achieved the victories and the honors, and an uneasy truce with the supporters became a love-in again.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a point when his goals came in contact with the club's operational approach, however.

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired once more, with bells on, recently. He publicly commented about the slow process the team went about their transfer business, the endless waiting for prospects to be landed, then not landed, as was frequently the case as far as he was believed.

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

Even when the organization spent record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - none of whom have cut it so far, with Idah since having left - the manager demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity inside the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his next news conference he would typically minimize it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It appeared like he was engaging in a risky strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that allegedly originated from a insider close to the organization. It claimed that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his departure plan.

He desired not to be there and he was arranging his exit, that was the tone of the story.

The fans were angered. They now viewed him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his honor because his board members wouldn't support his plans to achieve success.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was meant to harm Rodgers, which it did. He called for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we learned no more about it.

By then it was plain Rodgers was shedding the support of the individuals in charge.

The regular {gripes