How Irretrievable Collapse Resulted in a Brutal Separation for Rodgers & Celtic FC

Just a quarter of an hour following the club issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the bombshell landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

Through 551-words, key investor Dermot Desmond savaged his old chum.

This individual he convinced to come to the team when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and needed putting in their place. Plus the figure he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the recent offseason.

Such was the severity of his takedown, the astonishing return of Martin O'Neill was almost an after-thought.

Two decades after his exit from the organization, and after much of his latter years was given over to an continuous series of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a while. Based on things he has said recently, he has been eager to secure another job. He will view this role as the ultimate opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he experienced such glory and praise.

Would he give it up easily? It seems unlikely. The club might well reach out to sound out Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the most significant 'wow!' development was the brutal way Desmond described Rodgers.

It was a forceful attempt at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's wish for self-preservation at the cost of others," stated he.

For a person who values decorum and sets high importance in dealings being conducted with discretion, if not outright privacy, this was another illustration of how unusual situations have grown at the club.

Desmond, the organization's most powerful presence, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to take all the major calls he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He does not participate in club annual meetings, dispatching his son, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's slow to speak out.

He has been known on an rare moment to support the club with confidential messages to news outlets, but nothing is heard in the open.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to be. And it's exactly what he contradicted when launching full thermonuclear on the manager on Monday.

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

If the manager is guilty of all of the accusations that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the manager not removed?

He has accused him of distorting things in open forums that did not tally with reality.

He claims Rodgers' words "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the club and fuelled hostility towards members of the executive team and the directors. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

What an extraordinary charge, that is. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we discuss.

His Aspirations Conflicted with Celtic's Model Again

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

It was Desmond who drew the criticism when Rodgers' returned happened, after the previous manager.

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

Desmond had his support. Over time, Rodgers turned on the charm, delivered the victories and the honors, and an uneasy truce with the supporters became a affectionate relationship again.

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

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the sluggish process the team went about their transfer business, the interminable delay for prospects to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he spoke about the need for what he termed "agility" in the market. Supporters agreed with him.

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the expensive Arne Engels, the £9m Adam Idah and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have cut it to date, with Idah already having departed - Rodgers demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a controversy about a lack of cohesion within the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his next media briefing he would typically downplay it and almost contradict what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, all are united, he'd claim. It looked like he was engaging in a risky strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that purportedly came from a insider close to the club. It said that the manager was harming Celtic with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was managing his departure plan.

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

The fans were enraged. They then saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his board members did not back his plans to bring success.

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 dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

By then it was clear the manager was losing the support of the people above him.

The regular {gripes