The Way Unrecoverable Collapse Resulted in a Brutal Separation for Brendan Rodgers & Celtic

Merely a quarter of an hour following Celtic issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' shock departure via a brief short statement, the howitzer arrived, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent anger.

Through 551-words, key investor Desmond savaged his former ally.

The man he persuaded to join the team when Rangers were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. And the man he once more relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for another club in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was almost an after-thought.

Two decades after his departure from the organization, and after much of his recent life was given over to an unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his old hits at the team, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Considering comments he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been eager to get another job. He'll see this one as the perfect chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

Will he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. The club might well make a call to contact Postecoglou, but O'Neill will serve as a soothing presence for the time being.

All-out Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the biggest shocking development was the harsh manner the shareholder described Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a spreader of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For somebody who prizes propriety and places great store in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, this was a further example of how unusual situations have become at Celtic.

The major figure, the club's most powerful presence, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the power to take all the major decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He never attend team AGMs, dispatching his offspring, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about the team unless they're glowing in tone. And still, he's slow to speak out.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the club with confidential missives to media organisations, but no statement is heard in public.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to remain. And that's just what he contradicted when launching all-out attack on Rodgers on that day.

The official line from the team is that Rodgers stepped down, but reading Desmond's criticism, carefully, one must question why did he allow it to get such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is guilty of every one of the accusations that Desmond is alleging he's responsible for, then it's fair to inquire why had been the coach not removed?

Desmond has accused him of spinning information in open forums that were inconsistent with reality.

He says his words "have contributed to a hostile atmosphere around the team and encouraged hostility towards members of the management and the board. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

What an remarkable charge, indeed. Lawyers might be mobilising as we speak.

'Rodgers' Ambition Conflicted with Celtic's Strategy Once More'

To return to better times, they were close, the two men. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to him and, really, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who took the criticism when his comeback happened, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most divisive hiring, the return of the returning hero for a few or, as some other supporters would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had his support. Over time, the manager turned on the persuasion, achieved the victories and the honors, and an fragile peace with the fans turned into a love-in once more.

There was always - consistently - going to be a point when Rodgers' goals came in contact with Celtic's business model, though.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened again, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers spoke openly about the slow way the team went about their player acquisitions, the endless waiting for prospects to be landed, then not landed, as was frequently the case as far as he was believed.

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

Even when the organization spent unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the £11m Arne Engels, the costly another player and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have performed well to date, with Idah since having left - Rodgers pushed for more and more and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He set a controversy about a internal disunity inside the club and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would usually minimize it and almost reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, all are united, he'd claim. It appeared like Rodgers was engaging in a risky game.

Earlier this year there was a story in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a source close to the organization. It claimed that Rodgers was harming the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his departure plan.

He desired not to be present and he was engineering his way out, this was the implication of the story.

Supporters were angered. They then viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his honor because his board members did not back his plans to achieve success.

The leak was poisonous, of course, and it was meant to harm Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

By then it was clear Rodgers was losing the backing of the individuals above him.

The regular {gripes