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Just a quarter of an hour following the club issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a brief short statement, the bombshell landed, from Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

Through an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot Desmond savaged his former ally.

The man he convinced to join the team when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting in their place. And the man he again turned to after the previous manager departed to another club in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the astonishing return of Martin O'Neill was practically an after-thought.

Two decades after his exit from the club, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a time. Considering things he has said recently, O'Neill has been eager to secure another job. He'll see this one as the ultimate chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he enjoyed such glory and praise.

Will he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club could possibly make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will serve as a balm for the time being.

All-out Attempt at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the most significant shocking moment was the brutal way Desmond described the former manager.

It was a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a labeling of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the expense of others," stated he.

For somebody who prizes propriety and sets high importance in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, this was a further illustration of how unusual things have grown at the club.

The major figure, the club's dominant presence, operates in the background. The remote leader, the one with the authority to take all the major calls he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He does not participate in club annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, his son, instead. He seldom, if ever, does interviews about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the club with confidential messages to media organisations, but nothing is heard in public.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to remain. And it's exactly what he contradicted when launching full thermonuclear on the manager on that day.

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

Assuming Rodgers is guilty of every one of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the manager not dismissed?

He has charged him of spinning things in open forums that did not tally with the facts.

He says his words "played a part to a toxic environment around the team and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the directors. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unwarranted and unacceptable."

Such an extraordinary charge, indeed. Lawyers might be preparing as we speak.

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

To return to happier times, they were tight, the two men. The manager lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him every chance. Rodgers deferred to him and, truly, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who took the criticism when his returned happened, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most controversial appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have described it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Gradually, the manager employed the charm, achieved the victories and the honors, and an fragile truce with the supporters turned into a affectionate relationship again.

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

This occurred in his initial tenure and it transpired once more, with added intensity, over the last year. He publicly commented about the slow process Celtic went about their transfer business, the endless delay for targets to be secured, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he stated about the need for what he termed "flexibility" in the transfer window. The fans agreed with him.

Despite the organization spent unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the £11m Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have cut it to date, with Idah already having left - the manager demanded increased resources and, often, he did it in openly.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity within the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his next news conference he would typically minimize it and almost contradict what he said.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, all are united, he'd say. It appeared like Rodgers was playing a dangerous game.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a insider close to the organization. It said that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his open criticisms and that his true aim was managing his departure plan.

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

The fans were angered. They then viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his directors wouldn't support his vision to bring success.

This disclosure was damaging, of course, and it was meant to hurt him, which it accomplished. He demanded 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 losing the support of the people above him.

The regular {gripes