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Merely a quarter of an hour after the club released the announcement of their manager's surprising departure via a perfunctory short communication, the bombshell arrived, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent fury.

In 551-words, major shareholder Dermot Desmond savaged his old chum.

This individual he persuaded to come to the team when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and required being in their place. Plus the figure he once more relied on after the previous manager departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the astonishing return of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after a large part of his recent life was dedicated to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at the team, O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Based on things he has said recently, he has been eager to secure another job. He'll see this role as the ultimate chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such success and adulation.

Will he give it up easily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well make a call to contact their ex-manager, but O'Neill will serve as a soothing presence for the time being.

All-out Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be parked because the biggest shocking moment was the brutal manner the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at defamation, a branding of him as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the cost of others," stated he.

For a person who prizes propriety and places great store in business being done with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, this was another example of how abnormal things have grown at the club.

The major figure, the organization's dominant presence, operates in the background. The remote leader, the one with the power to make all the major decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He does not participate in team annual meetings, sending his son, his son, instead. He seldom, if ever, does media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

There have been instances on an rare moment to defend the club with confidential messages to media organisations, but no statement is made in public.

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

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

Assuming the manager is guilty of every one of the accusations that Desmond is claiming he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to inquire why had been the manager not dismissed?

He has accused him of spinning information in open forums that did not tally with reality.

He claims his words "played a part to a toxic environment around the team and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the directors. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unwarranted and improper."

What an remarkable allegation, indeed. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we discuss.

His Ambition Clashed with the Club's Model Again

To return to better days, they were tight, the two men. The manager lauded the shareholder at every turn, thanked him every chance. Brendan respected Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

This was Desmond who took the criticism when Rodgers' returned happened, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for a few or, as some other supporters would have described it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the lurch for Leicester.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Over time, Rodgers turned on the charm, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an fragile peace with the supporters turned into a love-in again.

There was always - consistently - 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 again, with added intensity, over the last year. He publicly commented about the sluggish process Celtic conducted their transfer business, the interminable waiting for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he stated about the necessity for what he called "flexibility" in the transfer window. Supporters agreed with him.

Even when the organization splurged record amounts of funds in a calendar year on the £11m one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well to date, with Idah since having left - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, often, he expressed this in public.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent media briefing he would usually minimize it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, all are united, he'd say. It appeared like Rodgers was playing a risky strategy.

A few months back there was a report in a publication that purportedly originated from a insider close to the organization. It said that the manager was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

Supporters were angered. They then viewed him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his board members wouldn't back his vision to bring triumph.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was meant to harm Rodgers, which it accomplished. He called for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. If there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

At that point it was plain the manager was shedding the support of the individuals in charge.

The regular {gripes