The Way Unrecoverable Collapse Resulted in a Savage Parting for Brendan Rodgers & Celtic

Just a quarter of an hour after the club issued the announcement of their manager's shock resignation via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the bombshell landed, from Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

Through an extensive statement, key investor Desmond savaged his former ally.

This individual he convinced to come to the team when Rangers were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting in their place. And the figure he again turned to after the previous manager departed to another club in the recent offseason.

So intense was the severity of his critique, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was almost an after-thought.

Twenty years after his exit from the club, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an unending circuit of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at the team, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

Currently - and perhaps for a while. Based on comments he has said recently, O'Neill has been eager to get a new position. He will view this one as the perfect opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he enjoyed such glory and praise.

Will he relinquish it easily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic might well make a call to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

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

It was a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "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 done with confidentiality, if not complete secrecy, this was another example of how abnormal situations have grown at the club.

Desmond, the club's most powerful presence, moves in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the authority to take all the important calls he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any public forum.

He never attend team AGMs, sending his offspring, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to defend the organization with private messages to media organisations, but nothing is heard in the open.

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

The official line from the club is that Rodgers resigned, but reading his criticism, carefully, one must question why he allow it to get this far down the line?

If Rodgers is guilty of all of the accusations that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to ask why had been the coach not dismissed?

Desmond has accused him of spinning information in public that did not tally with the facts.

He claims Rodgers' statements "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the club and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the management and the board. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unwarranted and improper."

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

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

To return to better days, they were tight, the two men. The manager praised Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

This was Desmond who took the heat when Rodgers' returned occurred, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most controversial hiring, the return of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as other supporters would have described it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had his back. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the fans turned into a love-in again.

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

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired again, with bells on, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow way Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for prospects to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he spoke about the need for what he termed "flexibility" in the transfer window. Supporters concurred with him.

Despite the club splurged record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the costly another player and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have cut it to date, with one already having departed - the manager demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity inside the club and then walked away. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would usually downplay it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like Rodgers was playing a risky game.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that purportedly came from a insider associated with the club. It claimed that Rodgers was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

The fans were angered. They now viewed him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his directors did not back his plans to achieve success.

This disclosure was poisonous, naturally, and it was meant to harm him, which it did. He called for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. If there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

By then it was clear Rodgers was losing the backing of the people in charge.

The regular {gripes