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Just fifteen minutes following the club issued the announcement of their manager's surprising departure via a brief short statement, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

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

The man he convinced to come to the club when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and needed putting in their place. Plus the man he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of his takedown, the astonishing return of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

Two decades after his exit from the club, and after a large part of his recent life was given over to an unending circuit of appearances and the performance of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a while. Based on comments he has said recently, O'Neill has been eager to secure another job. He will see this one as the ultimate chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he experienced such success and praise.

Would he give it up easily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly reach out to sound out their ex-manager, but O'Neill will serve as a soothing presence for the time being.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it is - can be set aside because the biggest shocking development was the brutal manner Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For somebody who prizes propriety and sets high importance in dealings being done with discretion, if not outright secrecy, this was a further illustration of how abnormal things have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the organization's dominant figure, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to make all the important decisions he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He does not attend team AGMs, sending his offspring, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to support the organization with private missives to news outlets, but nothing is made in the open.

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

The official line from the club is that he stepped down, but reading Desmond's criticism, line by line, you have to wonder why did he allow it to get this far down the line?

Assuming the manager is culpable of every one of the accusations that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to ask why was the manager not dismissed?

He has accused him of distorting information in public that did not tally with the facts.

He says Rodgers' words "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the team and fuelled animosity towards members of the management and the board. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

Such an extraordinary charge, that is. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we speak.

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

Looking back to better days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers lauded Desmond at every turn, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Brendan respected him and, truly, to no one other.

This was the figure who took the heat when Rodgers' returned happened, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most controversial appointment, the return of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as other supporters would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the difficulty for another club.

Desmond had his back. Gradually, Rodgers employed the persuasion, delivered the wins and the honors, and an uneasy truce with the fans turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

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

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with bells on, over the last year. He publicly commented about the sluggish way the team went about their player acquisitions, the interminable waiting for targets to be landed, then not landed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

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

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well so far, with Idah already having departed - the manager demanded more and more and, often, he did it in public.

He planted a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his subsequent media briefing he would typically minimize it and almost reverse what he said.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like he was playing a risky strategy.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly came from a insider close to the organization. It said that the manager was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was managing his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be there and he was arranging his exit, that was the tone of the story.

The fans were angered. They now saw him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his board members wouldn't support his vision to bring triumph.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was intended to harm him, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we learned no more about it.

By then it was clear Rodgers was losing the backing of the people in charge.

The frequent {gripes