🔗 Share this article

Merely fifteen minutes after Celtic issued the news of their manager's surprising departure via a brief short statement, the howitzer arrived, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

In 551-words, major shareholder Desmond savaged his old chum.

The man he convinced 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 Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the severity of Desmond's takedown, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was practically an after-thought.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his recent life was given over to an continuous series of appearances and the playing of all his past successes at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a while. Considering things he has said lately, O'Neill has been eager to get another job. He will see this one as the perfect opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

Will he relinquish it readily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the time being.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it may be - can be set aside because the biggest 'wow!' development was the brutal way Desmond described the former manager.

It was a forceful attempt at character assassination, a branding of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of untruths, a spreader of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the expense of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For a person who values decorum and places great store in dealings being done with discretion, if not complete privacy, this was a further example of how abnormal situations have grown at Celtic.

Desmond, the organization's dominant figure, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to make all the major calls he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not attend team annual meetings, sending his offspring, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about the team unless they're glowing in tone. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to support the organization with confidential messages to media organisations, but no statement is made in public.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to be. And that's exactly what he went against when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

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

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

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 atmosphere around the club and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the executive team and the board. A portion of the abuse aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unwarranted and unacceptable."

Such an remarkable charge, that is. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Ambition Conflicted with Celtic's Model Again

Looking back to better times, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager praised the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers respected Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

It was Desmond who drew the criticism when Rodgers' comeback happened, after the previous manager.

This marked the most controversial appointment, the return of the returning hero for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have described it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had his back. Over time, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the fans turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a moment when Rodgers' ambition clashed with the club's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened again, with bells on, recently. He publicly commented about the slow way the team went about their transfer business, the endless waiting for prospects to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the case as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he stated about the necessity for what he termed "agility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the organization splurged unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the £11m one signing, the costly another player and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have cut it so far, with Idah already having left - the manager pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in openly.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his next media briefing he would typically minimize it and almost reverse what he said.

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

Earlier this year there was a story in a newspaper that allegedly came from a insider close to the organization. It said that the manager was damaging Celtic with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He desired not to be there and he was engineering his exit, that was the tone of the story.

Supporters were angered. They then saw him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his honor because his board members did not support his vision to achieve success.

The leak was poisonous, of course, and it was meant to hurt him, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. If there was a probe then we heard nothing further about it.

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

The regular {gripes