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Just a quarter of an hour following the club issued the announcement of their manager's surprising departure via a perfunctory short communication, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent anger.

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

The man he persuaded to come to the club when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and needed putting in their place. And the figure he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of Desmond's takedown, the jaw-dropping comeback of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

Two decades after his departure from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was dedicated to an continuous series of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a time. Considering comments he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been keen to get a new position. He will view this role as the perfect opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such success and praise.

Would he give it up readily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well reach out to contact Postecoglou, but O'Neill will serve as a balm for the time being.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' moment was the brutal manner Desmond described the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-interest at the expense of others," wrote he.

For a person who values propriety and sets high importance in business being conducted with discretion, if not complete secrecy, this was a further example of how abnormal situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the organization's most powerful figure, moves in the background. The remote leader, the one with the power to take all the major decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of justifying them in any public forum.

He never participate in team AGMs, dispatching his offspring, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's reluctant to communicate.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to support the club with confidential messages to media organisations, but nothing is made in the open.

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

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

If Rodgers is culpable of every one of the accusations that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to inquire why had been the manager not removed?

He has charged him of spinning information in open forums that were inconsistent with reality.

He claims Rodgers' words "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the club and fuelled animosity towards members of the management and the board. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

What an extraordinary charge, that is. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

His Ambition Clashed with the Club's Model Once More'

To return to better 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 the figure who took the heat when Rodgers' returned occurred, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as other supporters would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for another club.

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Gradually, the manager turned on the charm, delivered the wins and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the supporters became a love-in again.

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

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with added intensity, over the last year. He spoke openly about the sluggish process Celtic conducted their transfer business, the interminable delay for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he spoke about the necessity for what he called "flexibility" in the transfer window. The fans concurred with him.

Despite the club splurged unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it to date, with one since having departed - the manager demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his subsequent news conference he would usually downplay it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous game.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a insider close to the club. It claimed that the manager was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be present and he was engineering his exit, this was the tone of the story.

Supporters were enraged. They now viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his board members did not support his vision to bring success.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was meant to hurt Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we heard nothing further about it.

By then it was plain the manager was losing the backing of the individuals in charge.

The frequent {gripes