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Merely a quarter of an hour after the club issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a brief five-paragraph statement, the bombshell landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious anger.

Through an extensive statement, key investor Dermot Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

The man he convinced to come to the club when their rivals were gaining ground in that period and required being back in a box. And the man he once more relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of Desmond's critique, the astonishing return of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was dedicated to an unending series of appearances and the playing of all his old hits at the team, Martin O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a time. Based on things he has expressed lately, he has been keen to secure a new position. He'll view this one as the ultimate chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such success and praise.

Will he relinquish it easily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic might well make a call to contact Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be parked because the most significant shocking moment was the brutal manner the shareholder described Rodgers.

It was a forceful endeavor at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a spreader of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the expense of others," wrote Desmond.

For somebody who prizes decorum and places great store in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not complete secrecy, here was a further illustration of how abnormal things have grown at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's dominant presence, moves in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the power to take all the important decisions he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not participate in club AGMs, sending his son, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in nature. And still, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to defend the organization with private messages to media organisations, but no statement is made in public.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to remain. And it's exactly what he went against when launching all-out attack on the manager on that day.

The directive from the club is that Rodgers resigned, but reading his criticism, carefully, one must question why he permit it to reach such a critical point?

If the manager is guilty of every one of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the manager not dismissed?

Desmond has charged him of distorting things in public that were inconsistent with the facts.

He claims his statements "played a part to a hostile environment around the team and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the directors. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

What an remarkable charge, indeed. Lawyers might be preparing as we speak.

His Aspirations Clashed with the Club's Strategy Once More'

To return to better times, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded Desmond at every turn, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

This was the figure who drew the criticism when his returned occurred, after the previous manager.

This marked the most controversial appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other Celtic fans would have described it, the arrival of the shameless one, who departed in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Over time, the manager employed the charm, delivered the victories and the honors, and an fragile peace with the fans became a affectionate relationship again.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when his goals came in contact with Celtic's business model, however.

It happened in his first incarnation and it happened again, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers spoke openly about the slow way the team conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable waiting for targets to be landed, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he stated about the need for what he termed "agility" in the transfer window. Supporters concurred with him.

Even when the organization splurged record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have cut it so far, with Idah already having left - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in public.

He set a bomb about a internal disunity inside the club and then walked away. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent media briefing he would usually downplay it and almost contradict what he said.

Internal issues? Not at all, all are united, he'd claim. It looked like Rodgers was playing a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a source associated with the organization. It claimed that the manager was damaging the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his departure plan.

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

The fans were angered. They then saw him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his honor because his directors wouldn't back his plans to achieve success.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was meant to hurt him, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

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

The frequent {gripes