How Unrecoverable Breakdown Resulted in a Brutal Separation for Rodgers & Celtic

Just a quarter of an hour following Celtic released the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a perfunctory five-paragraph statement, the howitzer arrived, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

In an extensive statement, major shareholder Desmond savaged his old chum.

The man he persuaded to come to the team when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and required being in their place. Plus the figure he again turned to after the previous manager departed to Tottenham in the recent offseason.

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

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his recent life was given over to an continuous circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

Currently - and maybe for a while. Based on comments he has expressed recently, he has been eager to secure a new position. He will view this role as the ultimate chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such glory and adulation.

Would he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well make a call to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

All-out Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - as surreal as it is - can be parked because the most significant shocking moment was the brutal way Desmond described the former manager.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a branding of him as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," wrote he.

For somebody who prizes decorum and places great store in business being done with discretion, if not complete secrecy, here was another illustration of how unusual situations have become at the club.

Desmond, the club's most powerful presence, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the power to take all the major decisions he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not participate in team annual meetings, sending his son, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to defend the club with private messages to news outlets, but nothing is heard in public.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to remain. And it's just what he contradicted when going full thermonuclear on the manager on that day.

The directive from the team is that he resigned, but reading Desmond's criticism, carefully, you have to wonder why did he allow it to reach such a critical point?

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

He has accused him of spinning information in open forums that did not tally with the facts.

He says Rodgers' words "played a part to a toxic environment around the team and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the board. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unwarranted and unacceptable."

Such an remarkable allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we speak.

His Aspirations Conflicted with the Club's Strategy Again

Looking back to better days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Brendan deferred to Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

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

This marked the most controversial appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other supporters would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the lurch for Leicester.

The shareholder had his back. Gradually, the manager turned on the persuasion, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an fragile peace with the supporters became a affectionate relationship again.

There was always - consistently - going to be a moment when his goals came in contact with Celtic's operational approach, however.

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with added intensity, over the last year. He publicly commented about the sluggish process Celtic conducted their transfer business, the interminable delay for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

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

Despite the club spent record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the £9m Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have performed well to date, with Idah since having departed - Rodgers pushed for increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent media briefing he would typically minimize it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like he was playing a dangerous game.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that allegedly came from a source associated with the club. It said that Rodgers was harming the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his departure plan.

He didn't want to be there and he was engineering his way out, that was the implication of the article.

Supporters were angered. They now viewed him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his directors wouldn't back his vision to achieve success.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was meant to harm Rodgers, which it did. He called for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be removed. Whether there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

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

The frequent {gripes