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Just a quarter of an hour following the club released the news of their manager's surprising departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph statement, the bombshell landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent anger.

In 551-words, key investor Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

The man he convinced to come to the club when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and required being in their place. And the man he once more turned to after the previous manager departed to Tottenham 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.

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after much of his recent life was dedicated to an continuous series of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

Currently - and perhaps for a while. Considering things he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been eager to get another job. He'll see this role as the ultimate chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Will he relinquish it easily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well make a call to contact their ex-manager, but O'Neill will serve as a balm for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's return - as surreal as it is - can be set aside because the biggest shocking moment was the harsh way the shareholder wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a forceful attempt at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the cost of others," stated he.

For somebody who prizes propriety and places great store in business being done with confidentiality, if not complete secrecy, here was a further example of how unusual things have become at the club.

The major figure, the club's dominant figure, moves in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the authority to make all the major calls he pleases without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He never attend club annual meetings, dispatching his son, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's slow to speak out.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to defend the club with confidential missives to media organisations, but nothing is heard in public.

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

The directive from the club is that he stepped down, but reading his invective, line by line, you have to wonder why did he allow it to reach such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of all of the things that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to inquire why was the coach not dismissed?

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

He claims Rodgers' words "have contributed to a hostile environment around the team and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the directors. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

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

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

Looking back to better days, they were close, the two men. The manager praised the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan respected Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

This was Desmond who took the criticism when Rodgers' comeback happened, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most controversial hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Over time, Rodgers employed the charm, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the supporters became a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when his goals clashed with the club's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with bells on, over the last year. He publicly commented about the slow way the team went about their player acquisitions, the endless delay for targets to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

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

Despite the club spent record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well so far, with Idah since having departed - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity within the team and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his next news conference he would typically downplay it and nearly contradict what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It looked like he was engaging in a risky strategy.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a source associated with the club. It said that the manager was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be there and he was engineering his exit, that was the implication of the article.

Supporters were angered. They now viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his honor because his board members did not back his vision to achieve triumph.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was meant to harm Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we heard no more about it.

At that point it was clear the manager was shedding the backing of the individuals above him.

The regular {gripes