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Merely a quarter of an hour following the club released the news of their manager's surprising departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the bombshell landed, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

In an extensive statement, key investor Dermot Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

The man he convinced to come to the team when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and required being back in a box. And the man he once more turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of Desmond's critique, the jaw-dropping comeback of the former boss was practically an after-thought.

Twenty years after his exit 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 playing of all his old hits at the team, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a while. Based on comments he has said lately, he has been keen to get another job. He'll see this role as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he enjoyed such glory and praise.

Would he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well make a call to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be parked because the most significant shocking moment was the harsh way the shareholder described the former manager.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," wrote Desmond.

For a person who prizes decorum and sets high importance in dealings being done with discretion, if not complete privacy, this was a further illustration of how unusual situations have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's dominant figure, operates in the background. The remote leader, the individual with the authority to take all the important decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of justifying them in any public forum.

He does not attend club annual meetings, sending his son, his son, in his place. He seldom, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to support the club with private messages to media organisations, but nothing is heard in the open.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to remain. And it's exactly what he contradicted when launching all-out attack on the manager on Monday.

The directive from the club is that Rodgers resigned, but reviewing his criticism, line by line, you have to wonder why he permit it to reach such a critical point?

If Rodgers is culpable of all of the accusations that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the coach not removed?

He has accused him of spinning things in open forums that did not tally with the facts.

He claims Rodgers' words "have contributed to a toxic environment around the club and fuelled animosity towards individuals of the executive team and the board. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unjustified and improper."

Such an extraordinary charge, that is. Lawyers might be preparing as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Model Again

To return to happier times, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at every turn, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to him and, really, to nobody else.

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

It was the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as other Celtic fans would have described it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' back. Over time, the manager turned on the charm, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the fans became a love-in again.

There was always - consistently - going to be a point when Rodgers' goals clashed with Celtic's operational approach, though.

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired again, with added intensity, recently. He publicly commented about the sluggish way Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the endless delay for targets to be landed, then missed, as was frequently the case as far as he was believed.

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

Despite the organization spent unprecedented sums of funds in a twelve-month period on the £11m one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with one since having left - the manager pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity within the club and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his subsequent media briefing he would typically downplay it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, all are united, he'd say. It looked like he was playing a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly originated from a insider close to the organization. It claimed that the manager was harming the team with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be there and he was engineering his exit, that was the implication of the story.

Supporters were enraged. They then saw him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his board members did not back his vision to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was poisonous, naturally, and it was meant to harm Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. If there was a examination then we learned no more about it.

By then it was clear the manager was losing the backing of the individuals in charge.

The regular {gripes