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Merely fifteen minutes after Celtic issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' shock departure via a brief short statement, the howitzer arrived, from Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

Through 551-words, key investor Desmond savaged his former ally.

This individual he persuaded to come to the club when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and required being back in a box. And the man he once more relied on after the previous manager departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the ferocity of Desmond's critique, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was practically an after-thought.

Twenty years after his departure from the organization, and after much of his recent life was given over to an continuous series of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a while. Considering things he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been keen to get another job. He will see this one as the perfect chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such glory and adulation.

Would he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well reach out to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will serve as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's return - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the most significant shocking development was the brutal manner Desmond described the former manager.

It was a forceful attempt at character assassination, a labeling of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of untruths, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," wrote he.

For somebody who prizes decorum and sets high importance in dealings being conducted with discretion, if not outright privacy, here was a further illustration of how unusual things have grown at Celtic.

The major figure, the club's dominant figure, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to make all the major decisions he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not participate in club AGMs, sending his offspring, his son, instead. He seldom, if ever, gives interviews about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in nature. And still, he's slow to speak out.

He has been known on an rare moment to defend the organization with private missives to news outlets, but no statement is heard in public.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to remain. And it's just what he contradicted when going all-out attack on Rodgers on that day.

The directive from the team is that Rodgers stepped down, but reading his invective, line by line, one must question why did he permit it to get this far down the line?

If Rodgers is guilty of all of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to inquire why had been the coach not removed?

He has charged him of distorting things in public that were inconsistent with reality.

He says his words "have contributed to a hostile environment around the club and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the executive team and the board. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unjustified and improper."

Such an remarkable charge, indeed. Legal representatives might be preparing as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Conflicted with the Club's Model Again

Looking back to happier days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Brendan respected him and, really, to no one other.

It was the figure who took the heat when his returned happened, after the previous manager.

This marked the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had his support. Over time, the manager turned on the charm, delivered the victories and the honors, and an fragile peace with the supporters became a affectionate relationship once more.

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

It happened in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with bells on, over the last year. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow process Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for prospects to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he stated about the need for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the club spent record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have cut it so far, with Idah already having departed - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

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

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It appeared like he was playing a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly originated from a insider close to the club. It said that the manager was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his true aim was orchestrating his departure plan.

He didn't want to be present and he was engineering his exit, this was the implication of the story.

Supporters were enraged. They now viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his honor because his directors wouldn't support his plans to achieve triumph.

The leak was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to hurt him, which it accomplished. He demanded for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be removed. If there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

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

The regular {gripes