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Just a quarter of an hour following the club issued the announcement of their manager's surprising departure via a brief five-paragraph communication, the howitzer arrived, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious fury.

In an extensive statement, major shareholder Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

This individual he convinced to join the club when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and required being in their place. And the figure he again turned to after the previous manager left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of his takedown, the astonishing comeback of the former boss was almost an after-thought.

Two decades after his departure from the club, and after much of his recent life was dedicated to an continuous circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

Currently - and perhaps for a while. Considering comments he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been keen to secure another job. He'll see this one as the perfect opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

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

'Full-blooded Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the most significant shocking moment was the harsh way Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a branding of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the cost of others," stated he.

For somebody who values propriety and places great store in dealings being done with discretion, if not outright secrecy, here was another illustration of how unusual things have grown at Celtic.

The major figure, the club's most powerful presence, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to take all the major decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He does not participate in club AGMs, dispatching his son, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to speak out.

He has been known on an occasion or two to defend the club with private missives to news outlets, but nothing is made in public.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to remain. And it's just what he went against when launching full thermonuclear on the manager on Monday.

The official line from the team is that Rodgers resigned, but reviewing his invective, line by line, one must question why he allow it to reach this far down the line?

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of every one of the accusations that Desmond is claiming he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why had been the manager not dismissed?

He has accused him of spinning things in public that did not tally with reality.

He claims his statements "have contributed to a hostile environment around the team and fuelled animosity towards members of the executive team and the directors. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

What an extraordinary allegation, indeed. Lawyers might be mobilising as we speak.

His Aspirations Clashed with the Club's Strategy Once More'

Looking back to happier times, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

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

It was the most controversial hiring, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other supporters would have described it, the return of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for another club.

Desmond had his support. Gradually, the manager turned on the charm, achieved the victories and the honors, and an fragile peace with the supporters became a affectionate relationship again.

There was always - always - going to be a point when Rodgers' goals clashed with the club's business model, though.

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired once more, with added intensity, over the last year. He spoke openly about the slow way the team conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he stated about the necessity for what he called "flexibility" in the market. The fans agreed with him.

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with one since having departed - the manager demanded more and more and, often, he did it in openly.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would usually minimize it and nearly contradict what he said.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, all are united, he'd claim. It appeared like Rodgers was playing a risky game.

A few months back there was a report in a publication that allegedly came from a insider close to the club. It claimed that Rodgers was damaging the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his departure plan.

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

The fans were angered. They now saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his directors wouldn't back his vision to bring success.

This disclosure was damaging, of course, and it was intended to hurt him, which it accomplished. He called for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

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

The frequent {gripes