The Way Unrecoverable Breakdown Resulted in a Brutal Parting for Rodgers & Celtic

Just a quarter of an hour following Celtic released the news of their manager's surprising resignation via a perfunctory short statement, the howitzer landed, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent anger.

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

The man he convinced to join the club when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and required being back in a box. And the figure he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the recent offseason.

Such was the severity of his takedown, the jaw-dropping return of Martin O'Neill was practically an after-thought.

Two decades after his exit from the club, 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 Celtic, Martin O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

Currently - and maybe for a while. Considering things he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been eager to get a new position. He will see this one as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he experienced such success and praise.

Would he give it up easily? It seems unlikely. Celtic could possibly reach out to sound out Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a soothing presence for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - as surreal as it is - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' development was the harsh manner Desmond described Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the expense of others," stated he.

For a person who prizes propriety and sets high importance in business being done with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, this was a further illustration of how unusual situations have become at Celtic.

The major figure, the club's dominant figure, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to take all the major decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He does not attend club AGMs, dispatching his offspring, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about Celtic unless they're glowing in tone. And still, he's slow to speak out.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to support the club with confidential messages to media organisations, but nothing is made in public.

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

The directive from the team is that Rodgers resigned, but reading his criticism, line by line, one must question why 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 coach not removed?

He has accused him of distorting information in open forums that were inconsistent with the facts.

He says his statements "have contributed to a toxic environment around the club and encouraged hostility towards members of the executive team and the board. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

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

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

To return to better days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. The manager praised the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Rodgers respected Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

This was the figure who drew the heat when Rodgers' comeback occurred, after the previous manager.

It was the most controversial appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for a few or, as other Celtic fans would have described it, the return of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had his back. Gradually, the manager turned on the persuasion, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the supporters turned into a love-in again.

There was always - consistently - going to be a point when Rodgers' ambition came in contact with the club's operational approach, though.

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired again, with bells on, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow way the team went about their player acquisitions, the endless waiting for targets to be secured, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he stated about the need for what he called "agility" in the transfer window. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the club splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the £9m Adam Idah and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have cut it to date, with one since having departed - the manager pushed for increased resources and, often, he did it in openly.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion within the team and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would usually minimize it and nearly reverse what he said.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like Rodgers was playing a risky strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a newspaper 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 true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He desired not to be there and he was engineering his exit, this was the implication of the story.

Supporters were angered. They now saw him as similar to a martyr who might be removed on his honor because his directors did not back his plans to achieve success.

The leak was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we learned no more about it.

At that point it was clear the manager was shedding the support of the people above him.

The frequent {gripes