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Merely fifteen minutes following Celtic released the announcement of their manager's shock departure via a brief short communication, the bombshell arrived, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent fury.

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

This individual he persuaded to join the team when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting in their place. Plus the figure he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the severity of his takedown, the astonishing comeback of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the club, and after much of his recent life was given over to an continuous series of appearances and the playing of all his old hits at the team, O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a time. Considering things he has said recently, O'Neill has been eager to secure a new position. He will see this one as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such glory and praise.

Will he give it up easily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic might well make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will serve as a soothing presence for the moment.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be set aside because the most significant shocking development was the harsh manner Desmond wrote of the former manager.

It was a forceful attempt at character assassination, a branding of him as deceitful, a source of untruths, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the expense of others," wrote Desmond.

For somebody who prizes decorum and places great store in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not complete secrecy, this was another illustration of how abnormal situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the club's most powerful presence, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the power to make all the important decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He never attend team AGMs, dispatching his offspring, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in nature. And still, he's reluctant to speak out.

He has been known on an occasion or two to defend the organization with confidential missives to media organisations, but nothing is made in the open.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And that's just what he contradicted when launching full thermonuclear on the manager on Monday.

The official line from the club is that Rodgers resigned, but reading his criticism, line by line, you have to wonder why he allow it to reach such a critical point?

If the manager is culpable of every one of the things that the shareholder is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to ask why had been the coach not dismissed?

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

He says Rodgers' words "have contributed to a hostile environment around the team and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the board. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

Such an remarkable charge, indeed. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we speak.

'Rodgers' Ambition Conflicted with Celtic's Strategy Once More'

To return to happier days, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

This was Desmond who took the criticism when his comeback happened, after the previous manager.

This marked the most controversial hiring, the return of the prodigal son for a few or, as other Celtic fans would have described it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the difficulty for another club.

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Over time, Rodgers turned on the charm, delivered the wins and the honors, and an fragile truce with the fans became a love-in once more.

There was always - always - going to be a moment when Rodgers' goals came in contact with the club's operational approach, though.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired once more, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow process the team conducted their transfer business, the endless delay for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he stated about the necessity for what he called "agility" in the market. Supporters concurred with him.

Even when the organization splurged unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the £11m Arne Engels, the £9m Adam Idah and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have cut it to date, with one since having left - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his next news conference he would usually downplay it and almost contradict what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It looked like he was playing a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that allegedly originated from a source close to the club. It said that Rodgers was harming Celtic 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 way out, this was the tone of the story.

Supporters were enraged. They now viewed him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his honor because his board members did not support his vision to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to hurt Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. If there was a examination then we heard no more about it.

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

The regular {gripes