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Just a quarter of an hour after Celtic issued the announcement of their manager's surprising departure via a perfunctory short statement, the bombshell arrived, from Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

Through an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

The man he convinced to come to the club when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and required being back in a box. Plus the figure he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the jaw-dropping comeback of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the club, and after much of his latter years was given over to an continuous series of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his past successes at the team, Martin O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a while. Considering comments he has said recently, O'Neill has been keen to get another job. He will view this one as the perfect opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Will he relinquish it readily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but the new appointment will serve as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's reappearance - as surreal as it is - can be parked because the biggest shocking development was the brutal manner the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

It was a forceful attempt at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the cost of others," wrote he.

For a person who values propriety and places great store in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not complete secrecy, here was a further illustration of how unusual things have grown at the club.

Desmond, the club's dominant presence, operates in the background. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to take all the important decisions he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any public forum.

He never attend club AGMs, sending his offspring, his son, instead. He seldom, if ever, does interviews about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in nature. And still, he's slow to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to support the club with private missives to news outlets, but nothing is heard in the open.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to remain. And it's exactly what he went against when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on that day.

The directive from the club is that Rodgers stepped down, but reading Desmond's invective, carefully, one must question why he allow it to reach such a critical point?

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

Desmond has accused him of distorting things in public that were inconsistent with the facts.

He says his statements "have contributed to a hostile environment around the club and fuelled animosity towards members 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 extraordinary allegation, indeed. Lawyers might be preparing as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Conflicted with Celtic's Strategy Again

Looking back to better days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded Desmond at every turn, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to him and, really, to no one other.

It was Desmond who took the criticism when Rodgers' returned occurred, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other supporters would have described it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' back. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the charm, delivered the victories and the honors, and an fragile truce with the supporters turned into a love-in once more.

There was always - always - going to be a moment when Rodgers' ambition clashed with Celtic's business model, though.

It happened in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with added intensity, recently. He publicly commented about the slow way Celtic went about their transfer business, the interminable delay for targets to be landed, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was believed.

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

Even when the club spent record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the £9m Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well so far, with Idah since having left - the manager demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in public.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion within the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his next news conference he would typically downplay it and almost reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, all are united, he'd say. It appeared like Rodgers was playing a dangerous game.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that purportedly originated from a source close to the organization. It claimed that the manager was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his departure plan.

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

The fans were angered. They then viewed him as similar to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his board members wouldn't back his vision to achieve success.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was meant to hurt Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. If there was a examination then we heard no more about it.

By then it was clear Rodgers was shedding the backing of the individuals above him.

The frequent {gripes