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Just a quarter of an hour after the club issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a brief short communication, the bombshell landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

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

This individual he convinced to join the club when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting in their place. Plus the man he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for another club in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of Desmond's takedown, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Two decades after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was dedicated to an continuous series of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his past successes at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a while. Based on things he has expressed recently, he has been eager to secure a new position. He'll see this one as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the environment where he experienced such success and praise.

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

'Full-blooded Effort at Character Assassination

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

It was a forceful endeavor at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a source of untruths, a spreader of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's wish for self-preservation at the cost of others," stated Desmond.

For somebody who prizes propriety and places great store in dealings being done with discretion, if not complete secrecy, this was a further example of how unusual situations have grown at the club.

Desmond, the club's dominant presence, operates in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the power to make all the important calls he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any open setting.

He never participate in club AGMs, dispatching his offspring, Ross, instead. He seldom, if ever, gives interviews about the team 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 confidential missives to media organisations, but nothing is made in the open.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to be. And it's exactly what he went against when going full thermonuclear on the manager on that day.

The directive from the team is that he stepped down, but reading Desmond's criticism, line by line, one must question why he permit it to get such a critical point?

Assuming the manager is guilty of all of the accusations that Desmond is alleging he's responsible for, then it's fair to inquire why was the manager not dismissed?

Desmond has charged him of distorting information in public that were inconsistent with reality.

He claims Rodgers' words "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the team and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the management and the directors. Some of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been completely unwarranted and improper."

Such an remarkable allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

His Ambition Clashed with the Club's Model Once More'

Looking back to better times, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers lauded Desmond at every turn, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Brendan deferred to Dermot and, really, to no one other.

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

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

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Gradually, Rodgers employed the charm, delivered the victories and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the fans turned into a love-in once more.

There was always - always - going to be a moment when Rodgers' ambition clashed with Celtic's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with bells on, recently. Rodgers spoke openly about the slow way Celtic conducted their transfer business, the interminable waiting for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he spoke about the necessity for what he termed "agility" in the market. Supporters agreed with him.

Despite the club splurged unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well so far, with Idah since having left - Rodgers pushed for more and more and, often, he expressed this in public.

He set a controversy about a internal disunity inside the team and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his next media briefing he would typically minimize it and almost reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like he was playing a risky game.

Earlier this year there was a report in a publication that purportedly came from a insider close to the organization. It claimed that the manager was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his departure plan.

He desired not to be there and he was engineering his exit, this was the implication of the story.

The fans were angered. They then saw him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his honor because his directors wouldn't support his vision to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was damaging, of course, and it was meant to harm Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. If there was a probe then we heard nothing further about it.

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

The regular {gripes