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Merely fifteen minutes after the club issued the announcement of their manager's surprising departure via a brief five-paragraph communication, the bombshell arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent fury.

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

The man he persuaded to join the club when their rivals were gaining ground in that period and needed putting back in a box. And the man he once more turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of his takedown, the jaw-dropping return of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the organization, and after a large part of his recent life was dedicated to an unending series of appearances and the performance of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a time. Based on things he has expressed lately, he has been eager to secure a new position. He'll view this one as the perfect chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he experienced such success and praise.

Will he relinquish it readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will serve as a balm for the moment.

All-out Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be set aside because the most significant 'wow!' development was the harsh way Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of misinformation; divisive, misleading and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," wrote he.

For a person who prizes propriety and sets high importance in business being done with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, here was a further example of how abnormal things have become at Celtic.

The major figure, the organization's dominant figure, operates in the background. The remote leader, the one with the authority to make all the important decisions he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He never attend club AGMs, dispatching his offspring, his son, instead. He seldom, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic 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 private messages to news outlets, but nothing is made in the open.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to remain. And it's just what he went against when going all-out attack on Rodgers on Monday.

The official line from the team is that Rodgers resigned, but reviewing Desmond's invective, line by line, one must question why did he permit it to reach such a critical point?

Assuming the manager is culpable of all of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why was the coach not dismissed?

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

He says his words "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the team and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the management and the board. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

What an remarkable allegation, indeed. Lawyers might be preparing as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Ambition Conflicted with the Club's Strategy Once More'

Looking back to happier days, they were close, the two men. The manager lauded Desmond at every turn, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

It was Desmond who drew the criticism when his returned occurred, after the previous manager.

It was the most controversial hiring, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had his support. Over time, Rodgers employed the charm, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the supporters turned into a love-in again.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when Rodgers' ambition came in contact with Celtic's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with bells on, over the last year. He publicly commented about the slow process the team went about their player acquisitions, the endless delay for prospects to be landed, then not landed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he spoke about the necessity for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the club splurged record amounts of money in a calendar year on the £11m one signing, the £9m another player and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have performed well so far, with Idah since having left - the manager demanded increased resources and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He set a controversy about a internal disunity within the team and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would usually minimize it and nearly reverse what he said.

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

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that purportedly came from a insider associated with the organization. It claimed 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 exit, that was the implication of the article.

Supporters were angered. They then saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his board members wouldn't support his plans to bring triumph.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to harm him, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. If there was a probe then we heard no more about it.

By then it was clear Rodgers was losing the backing of the people above him.

The regular {gripes