How Unrecoverable Breakdown Resulted in a Savage Parting for Brendan Rodgers & Celtic FC

Just a quarter of an hour after the club released the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising resignation via a perfunctory five-paragraph statement, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

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

This individual he persuaded to come to the club when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and required being back in a box. And the man he once more relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's critique, the astonishing return of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Two decades after his exit from the club, and after much of his recent life was given over to an continuous series of appearances and the performance of all his past successes at Celtic, O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Based on comments he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been keen to get a new position. He will see this role as the perfect opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such success and praise.

Would he give it up easily? It seems unlikely. Celtic could possibly make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the moment.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be set aside because the most significant shocking moment was the harsh manner Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a branding of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the cost of others," stated Desmond.

For somebody who prizes propriety and places great store in dealings being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, here was a further example of how unusual situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the organization's dominant figure, moves in the margins. The remote leader, the individual with the authority to take all the major decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of justifying them in any public forum.

He does not participate in team annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, his son, in his place. He seldom, if ever, does interviews about the team unless they're glowing in tone. And still, he's reluctant to communicate.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to support the organization with private messages to news outlets, but no statement is heard in the open.

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

The official line from the club is that Rodgers stepped down, but reviewing Desmond's invective, carefully, one must question why he allow it to get this far down the line?

Assuming the manager is guilty of every one of the things that Desmond is claiming he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to inquire why was the manager not removed?

Desmond has accused him of distorting things in public that were inconsistent with reality.

He claims his statements "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the team and encouraged animosity towards members of the executive team and the board. Some of the criticism directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

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

'Rodgers' Ambition Clashed with the Club's Strategy Again

To return to happier days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded Desmond at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan respected him and, really, to no one other.

It was Desmond who took the heat when his comeback occurred, after the previous manager.

It was the most controversial hiring, the reappearance of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have described it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the difficulty for Leicester.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Gradually, Rodgers employed the charm, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an fragile peace with the supporters became a love-in again.

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

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired once more, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers spoke openly about the slow process Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the endless delay for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the case as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he spoke about the necessity for what he termed "agility" in the transfer window. Supporters agreed with him.

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the £9m Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - all of whom have performed well so far, with Idah since having departed - Rodgers demanded more and more and, often, he did it in public.

He planted a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his subsequent news conference he would usually minimize it and almost reverse what he said.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, all are united, he'd claim. It appeared like he 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 club. It claimed that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his departure plan.

He didn't want to be present and he was engineering his way out, this was the implication of the story.

Supporters were angered. They now saw him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his board members wouldn't back his vision to bring triumph.

This disclosure was poisonous, naturally, and it was meant to hurt Rodgers, which it did. He called for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we heard no more about it.

At that point it was clear the manager was shedding the support of the individuals in charge.

The regular {gripes