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

Merely a quarter of an hour following Celtic issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a brief five-paragraph communication, the bombshell arrived, from Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

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

This individual he persuaded to join the team when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and required being in their place. Plus the figure he once more turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the severity of Desmond's takedown, the astonishing return of Martin O'Neill was practically an after-thought.

Two decades after his exit from the club, and after a large part of his recent life was given over to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at the team, O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

Currently - and maybe for a time. Based on things he has said recently, O'Neill has been eager to secure another job. He will view this one as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Will he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club could possibly reach out to sound out their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the time being.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the biggest 'wow!' moment was the harsh manner the shareholder described the former manager.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the cost of others," wrote he.

For a person who values decorum and places great store in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, here was another illustration of how unusual things have grown at the club.

The major figure, the organization's dominant figure, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to make all the major decisions he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any public forum.

He never attend team AGMs, sending his offspring, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does 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 support the club with confidential messages to media organisations, but no statement is made in the open.

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

The directive from the club is that he stepped down, but reviewing his criticism, line by line, you have to wonder why he allow it to reach such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is guilty of all of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it's fair to ask why had been the coach not removed?

Desmond has charged him of distorting information in open forums that were inconsistent with the facts.

He claims his words "played a part to a toxic environment around the club and encouraged hostility towards members of the executive team and the directors. Some of the criticism directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unwarranted and unacceptable."

Such an extraordinary allegation, indeed. Lawyers might be preparing as we speak.

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

Looking back to better days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. The manager praised the shareholder at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who drew the criticism when his comeback occurred, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the shameless one, who departed in the difficulty for another club.

Desmond had Rodgers' back. Gradually, the manager employed the persuasion, delivered the wins and the honors, and an fragile truce with the fans turned into a love-in again.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a point when his ambition clashed with the club's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened again, with added intensity, over the last year. He publicly commented about the sluggish way Celtic went about their transfer business, the endless delay for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

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

Despite the club splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the costly another player and the £6m further acquisition - all of whom have cut it to date, with one already having departed - the manager 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 comments at his subsequent media briefing he would typically minimize it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, all are united, he'd say. It appeared like Rodgers was playing a risky game.

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly came from a source close to the club. It said that the manager was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his exit strategy.

He desired not to be present and he was engineering his way out, that was the tone of the article.

Supporters were enraged. They now saw him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his directors did not support his vision to achieve success.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was meant to harm Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

By then it was plain Rodgers was losing the support of the people above him.

The regular {gripes