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Merely fifteen minutes after the club issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a perfunctory short communication, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

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

The man he convinced to join the club when their rivals were gaining ground in that period and required being in their place. Plus the man he once more turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of Desmond's critique, the astonishing comeback of the former boss was almost an after-thought.

Twenty years after his exit from the club, and after a large part of his recent life was given over to an continuous circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at the team, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a time. Based on things he has said recently, he has been keen to get a new position. He'll see this role as the perfect chance, a present from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the environment where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

Will he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well make a call to contact Postecoglou, but O'Neill will serve as a soothing presence for the time being.

All-out Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's return - however strange as it is - can be set aside because the most significant shocking moment was the brutal way the shareholder described Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a branding of him as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the cost of others," wrote Desmond.

For a person who values decorum and places great store in dealings being done with discretion, if not outright secrecy, this was another example of how abnormal situations have grown at the club.

The major figure, the club's most powerful figure, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the power to make all the major calls he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He never attend team annual meetings, sending his son, Ross, instead. He seldom, if ever, does interviews about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in nature. And still, 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 made in the open.

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

The directive from the team is that he stepped down, but reviewing his criticism, line by line, you have to wonder why did he allow it to get such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of all of the accusations that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why had been the coach not removed?

Desmond has charged him of distorting things in open forums that did not tally with reality.

He says Rodgers' statements "have contributed to a hostile environment around the club and fuelled animosity towards individuals of the management and the directors. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

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

His Ambition Conflicted with Celtic's Model Again

To return to happier days, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers praised the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Rodgers deferred to him and, really, to nobody else.

This was the figure who took the criticism when his returned happened, after the previous manager.

This marked the most divisive hiring, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other supporters would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the difficulty for Leicester.

The shareholder had his back. Over time, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the supporters became a love-in once more.

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

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with bells on, recently. He spoke openly about the slow process Celtic went about their transfer business, the interminable delay for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the case as far as he was believed.

Time and again he spoke about the necessity for what he called "agility" in the market. Supporters concurred with him.

Despite the club spent unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the £9m another player and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have cut it to date, with Idah since having departed - Rodgers pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in public.

He planted a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the club and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would usually minimize it and nearly contradict what he said.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like he was engaging in a dangerous game.

A few months back there was a report in a publication that purportedly originated from a source associated with the organization. It claimed that the manager was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his exit strategy.

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

The fans were angered. They now saw him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his board members did not back his vision to bring triumph.

The leak was damaging, naturally, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we heard no more about it.

By then it was plain the manager was losing the support of the people in charge.

The frequent {gripes