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Merely a quarter of an hour after Celtic issued the announcement of their manager's surprising departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the bombshell landed, from Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

Through an extensive statement, major shareholder Desmond savaged his former ally.

The man he persuaded to come to the team when Rangers were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. And the figure he once more relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the severity of his takedown, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Two decades after his departure from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a time. Considering things he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been eager to secure a new position. He will view this role as the perfect opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he experienced such success and praise.

Will he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly reach out to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the moment.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's reappearance - as surreal as it is - can be parked because the most significant 'wow!' moment was the harsh manner the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the expense of others," wrote he.

For somebody who prizes decorum and sets high importance in business being conducted with discretion, if not outright privacy, this was another illustration of how abnormal things have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the organization's dominant presence, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to make all the important calls he pleases without having the responsibility of justifying them in any public forum.

He does not participate in team annual meetings, sending his son, his son, in his place. He seldom, if ever, does media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in nature. And still, he's reluctant to speak out.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the club with confidential messages to news outlets, but nothing is heard in the open.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to be. And it's exactly what he contradicted when going 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 he allow it to reach this far down the line?

If Rodgers is culpable of all of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it's fair to inquire why had been the coach not dismissed?

Desmond has charged him of distorting things in open forums that were inconsistent with reality.

He claims Rodgers' statements "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the club and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the directors. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

Such an extraordinary charge, that is. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we speak.

His Aspirations Conflicted with Celtic's Model Once More'

To return to better times, they were close, the two men. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him every chance. Brendan respected Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

This was the figure who drew the heat when his comeback occurred, after the previous manager.

This marked the most controversial hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as other supporters would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for another club.

Desmond had his support. Over time, Rodgers employed the persuasion, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an fragile peace with the fans became a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a point when Rodgers' goals clashed with Celtic's operational approach, however.

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened again, with added intensity, over the last year. He spoke openly about the slow way Celtic went about their transfer business, the endless waiting 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 need for what he called "flexibility" in the transfer window. The fans agreed with him.

Even when the club splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the £11m Arne Engels, the costly another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - none of whom have cut it to date, with one already having departed - the manager pushed for increased resources and, often, he did it in openly.

He set a controversy about a internal disunity within the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his next media briefing he would usually minimize it and almost reverse what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, all are united, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was playing a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly originated from a insider close to the club. It said that the manager was damaging the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his departure plan.

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

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

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it did. He called for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

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

The frequent {gripes