How Irretrievable Collapse Led to a Savage Parting for Brendan Rodgers & Celtic

Just a quarter of an hour after the club released the news of their manager's surprising resignation via a brief short statement, the howitzer landed, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious fury.

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

This individual he persuaded to come to the team when Rangers were gaining ground in that period and needed putting back in a box. And the man he once more turned to after the previous manager departed to Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the severity of his critique, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after a large part of his recent life was dedicated to an continuous series of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Based on things he has said recently, O'Neill has been eager to secure a new position. He'll view this one as the perfect chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such glory and adulation.

Would he give it up easily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well reach out to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the moment.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the biggest 'wow!' development was the brutal manner the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at character assassination, a branding of him as deceitful, a source of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the expense of others," wrote Desmond.

For somebody who prizes decorum and places great store in business being done with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, this was a further illustration of how abnormal situations have become at Celtic.

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

He never participate in club annual meetings, dispatching his son, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about Celtic unless they're glowing in tone. And still, he's slow to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to defend the club with private messages to news outlets, but nothing is made in public.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And that's just what he contradicted when launching all-out attack on the manager on that day.

The official line from the team is that Rodgers resigned, but reviewing his invective, line by line, one must question why he allow it to get this far down the line?

If Rodgers is culpable of all of the things that Desmond is claiming he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the coach not dismissed?

Desmond has accused him of distorting information in open forums that did not tally with reality.

He says his statements "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the team and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the board. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unwarranted and unacceptable."

What an extraordinary charge, that is. Lawyers might be preparing as we speak.

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

To return to happier days, they were tight, the two men. The manager praised Desmond at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Rodgers deferred to him and, truly, to nobody else.

This was Desmond who drew the criticism when his returned occurred, after the previous manager.

This marked the most controversial appointment, the return of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as other supporters would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Over time, the manager employed the persuasion, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the supporters turned into a love-in once more.

There was always - always - going to be a moment when his ambition clashed with the club's business model, however.

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired once more, with added intensity, recently. He spoke openly about the slow process Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the endless delay for prospects to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the case as far as he was concerned.

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

Despite the club splurged unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the costly another player and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have cut it to date, with Idah already having left - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in public.

He set a bomb about a internal disunity within the club and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would typically downplay it and nearly reverse what he said.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like Rodgers was playing a risky strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that allegedly originated from a source associated with the organization. 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 present and he was engineering his way out, this was the tone of the story.

Supporters were angered. They then saw him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out 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 hurt Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we heard no more about it.

By then it was plain the manager was shedding the support of the individuals above him.

The regular {gripes