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Merely fifteen minutes following the club issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a brief short statement, the howitzer landed, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious fury.

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

This individual he persuaded to come to the club when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and required being back in a box. And the figure he once more turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for another club in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the severity of Desmond's critique, the astonishing comeback of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the organization, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at the team, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a while. Considering comments he has expressed lately, he has been eager to secure another job. He will see this one as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he experienced such glory and adulation.

Would he relinquish it readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club could possibly make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the biggest shocking moment was the harsh way Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a branding of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the expense of others," wrote Desmond.

For a person who prizes propriety and sets high importance in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, this was another example of how unusual situations have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's most powerful presence, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to make all the major calls he pleases without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He never attend club annual meetings, sending his son, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to defend the club with confidential missives to media organisations, but nothing is heard in the open.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And that's exactly what he contradicted when launching all-out attack on Rodgers on that day.

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

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of every one of the things that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to inquire why had been the manager not dismissed?

Desmond has charged him of distorting things in open forums that were inconsistent with the facts.

He claims his statements "have contributed to a hostile environment around the club and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the management and the directors. Some of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

Such an remarkable charge, indeed. Lawyers might be mobilising as we discuss.

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

Looking back to happier days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager praised Desmond at every turn, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to him and, really, to nobody else.

This was the figure who took the heat when his comeback happened, after the previous manager.

This marked the most divisive appointment, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other supporters would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Gradually, the manager employed the persuasion, delivered the victories and the honors, and an fragile truce with the fans turned into a love-in once more.

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

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened again, with bells on, recently. He spoke openly about the sluggish process the team went about their player acquisitions, the endless delay for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was too often the situation as far as he was concerned.

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

Despite the organization spent record amounts of money in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the £9m Adam Idah and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have cut it so far, with one already having left - the manager demanded increased resources and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion within the team and then walked away. Upon questioning about his remarks at his next media briefing he would typically downplay it and almost contradict what he stated.

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

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a source associated with the club. It said that the manager was harming Celtic with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his departure plan.

He desired not to be present and he was engineering his way out, that was the tone of the article.

The fans were angered. They now 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.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was meant to harm him, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. If there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

At that point it was plain Rodgers was losing the backing of the people in charge.

The regular {gripes