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Merely a quarter of an hour after Celtic issued the announcement of their manager's shock departure via a brief five-paragraph communication, the howitzer landed, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent fury.

In 551-words, major shareholder Dermot Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

The man he persuaded to join the team when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting in their place. Plus the man he once more turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Two decades after his departure from the organization, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his past successes at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

Currently - and perhaps for a while. Considering comments he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been eager to get a new position. He'll see this role as the perfect opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such success and praise.

Will he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic might well make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a soothing presence for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's return - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the most significant 'wow!' development was the brutal manner the shareholder described Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a branding of him as untrustful, a source of untruths, a spreader of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the expense of others," wrote Desmond.

For a person who values propriety and sets high importance in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not complete secrecy, here was another example of how unusual situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the organization's most powerful presence, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the power to make all the important calls he pleases without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He does not attend club annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about the team unless they're hagiographic in nature. And still, he's slow to speak out.

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

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And that's exactly what he went against when launching full thermonuclear on Rodgers on that day.

The official line from the club is that Rodgers stepped down, but reading his criticism, carefully, one must question why did he permit it to reach this far down the line?

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

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

He says his words "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the club and encouraged animosity towards members of the executive team and the directors. Some of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been completely unwarranted and unacceptable."

What an remarkable allegation, that is. Lawyers might be preparing as we discuss.

His Aspirations Clashed with the Club's Model Again

Looking back to happier times, they were close, the two men. Rodgers praised the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to him and, truly, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who took the criticism when Rodgers' comeback happened, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for a few or, as other supporters would have described it, the return of the shameless one, who left them in the lurch for another club.

Desmond had his support. Gradually, the manager employed the charm, achieved the wins and the honors, and an uneasy truce with the supporters became a love-in once more.

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

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with added intensity, over the last year. He spoke openly about the sluggish way the team conducted their transfer business, the endless delay for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

Time and again he spoke about the need for what he termed "flexibility" in the transfer window. Supporters concurred with him.

Despite the organization splurged record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the £9m Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it to date, with one already having left - Rodgers pushed for increased resources and, often, he expressed this in public.

He planted a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent media briefing he would usually downplay it and almost reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, all are united, he'd say. It looked like he was engaging in a risky strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a source close to the club. It claimed that the manager was harming Celtic with his open criticisms and that his true aim was managing his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be present and he was arranging his exit, that was the tone of the article.

The fans were angered. They now viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his board members did not support his vision to achieve triumph.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was intended to hurt Rodgers, which it accomplished. He called for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. If there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

At that point it was plain Rodgers was shedding the support of the people above him.

The frequent {gripes