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Just fifteen minutes following the club issued the news of their manager's surprising resignation via a brief short statement, the howitzer landed, courtesy of the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent anger.

In an extensive statement, key investor Desmond savaged his former ally.

This individual he persuaded to come to the club when Rangers were gaining ground in that period and needed putting back in a box. Plus the figure he once more turned to after the previous manager left for another club in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years 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 past successes at the team, O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Considering things he has said lately, he has been keen to secure another job. He will see this one as the perfect chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such glory and praise.

Would he give it up readily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly reach out to contact their ex-manager, but O'Neill will serve as a balm for the time being.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be parked because the most significant shocking moment was the harsh way Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a labeling of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," wrote he.

For a person who values decorum and sets high importance in dealings being done with discretion, if not complete secrecy, here was another illustration of how abnormal situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the club's dominant presence, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to take all the important decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of justifying them in any public forum.

He never attend team AGMs, sending his offspring, his son, instead. He seldom, if ever, does media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in nature. And still, he's reluctant to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the organization with confidential missives to news outlets, but nothing is heard in public.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to be. And that's exactly what he went against when launching full thermonuclear on the manager on Monday.

The directive from the team is that Rodgers stepped down, but reading Desmond's criticism, line by line, you have to wonder why did he allow it to get such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is guilty of every one of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the coach not removed?

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

He says Rodgers' words "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the club and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the directors. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

What an extraordinary allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be preparing as we discuss.

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

To return to better times, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers lauded Desmond at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Rodgers deferred to Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who took the heat when his comeback occurred, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Over time, Rodgers employed the persuasion, delivered the victories and the honors, and an fragile truce with the fans turned into a love-in once more.

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

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with added intensity, recently. He spoke openly about the slow way Celtic went about their transfer business, the interminable delay for prospects to be landed, then not landed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he spoke about the need for what he called "agility" in the market. Supporters concurred with him.

Despite the club spent unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the £9m another player and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have cut it so far, with one already having left - Rodgers demanded more and more and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He set a bomb about a internal disunity within the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his next media briefing he would usually minimize it and almost contradict what he said.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, all are united, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was playing a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a report in a publication that allegedly came from a insider close to the organization. It said that Rodgers was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

The fans were angered. They now viewed him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his directors did not support his plans to bring triumph.

The leak was damaging, naturally, and it was meant to harm him, which it did. He called for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we heard nothing further about it.

By then it was plain the manager was shedding the backing of the individuals in charge.

The regular {gripes