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Just fifteen minutes after Celtic released the announcement of their manager's shock departure via a perfunctory short statement, the bombshell arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

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

The man he convinced to come to the club when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and required being in their place. Plus the man he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for another club in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's critique, the jaw-dropping comeback of Martin O'Neill was almost an after-thought.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his recent life was dedicated to an unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a time. Based on things he has expressed lately, he has been keen to secure a new position. He'll view this one as the ultimate opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such success and adulation.

Would he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly reach out to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will serve as a balm for the time being.

All-out Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it is - can be set aside because the most significant 'wow!' moment was the brutal way Desmond described Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded attempt at defamation, a branding of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," wrote he.

For a person who values decorum and places great store in business being done with discretion, if not outright secrecy, here was a further example of how unusual situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the club's most powerful figure, operates in the margins. The remote leader, the individual with the power to take all the important calls he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any public forum.

He does not participate in club AGMs, dispatching his offspring, Ross, instead. He seldom, if ever, does media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in tone. And still, he's slow to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to support the organization with confidential messages to news outlets, but nothing is made in public.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to be. And that's exactly what he went against when going all-out attack on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the team is that he resigned, but reviewing his invective, line by line, you have to wonder why he permit it to get this far down the line?

If the manager is culpable of all of the accusations that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it's fair to ask why had been the manager not dismissed?

Desmond has charged him of distorting information in open forums that did not tally with the facts.

He claims Rodgers' statements "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the club and encouraged animosity towards members of the management and the board. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

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

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

To return to better days, they were close, the two men. The manager praised the shareholder at every turn, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to him and, truly, to nobody else.

It was the figure who took the criticism when Rodgers' returned happened, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most divisive hiring, the return of the returning hero for a few or, as other supporters would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Gradually, Rodgers employed the charm, delivered the victories and the honors, and an uneasy truce with the fans became a affectionate relationship again.

There was always - consistently - going to be a moment when Rodgers' goals clashed with the club's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish way Celtic went about their player acquisitions, the interminable waiting for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he stated about the necessity for what he termed "flexibility" in the transfer window. Supporters concurred with him.

Even when the club splurged record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the costly another player and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have cut it so far, with one since having left - Rodgers pushed for more and more and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then walked away. When asked about his comments at his next news conference he would typically minimize it and nearly reverse what he said.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like he was engaging in a risky strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that allegedly originated from a insider close to the club. It claimed that Rodgers was damaging the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He desired not to be present and he was arranging his exit, this was the tone of the article.

The fans were angered. They then saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his honor because his directors did not back his vision to achieve success.

This disclosure was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to hurt him, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. If there was a examination then we learned no more about it.

By then it was clear Rodgers was shedding the support of the people above him.

The frequent {gripes