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Just a quarter of an hour following Celtic released the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' shock departure via a perfunctory short communication, the bombshell arrived, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious anger.

Through 551-words, key investor Desmond savaged his former ally.

This individual he persuaded to join the team when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and required being back in a box. Plus the figure he once more turned to after the previous manager left for another club in the summer of 2023.

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

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after much of his recent life was given over to an continuous series of appearances and the playing of all his past successes at Celtic, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

Currently - and perhaps for a while. Based on things he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been eager to secure a new position. He'll see this one as the ultimate opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he enjoyed such glory and praise.

Would he give it up easily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

The new manager's return - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the most significant 'wow!' development was the harsh manner the shareholder wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at defamation, a labeling of him as deceitful, a source of untruths, a disseminator of misinformation; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," wrote he.

For somebody who values propriety and places great store in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, here was another illustration of how unusual things have grown at the club.

The major figure, the organization's most powerful presence, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to take all the important calls he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He does not attend club AGMs, sending his son, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's slow to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the organization with private messages to media organisations, but no statement is heard in the open.

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

The directive from the club is that he resigned, but reviewing his invective, carefully, you have to wonder why did he allow it to get such a critical point?

If Rodgers is guilty of all of the accusations that Desmond is claiming he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to inquire why was the coach not removed?

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

He says his words "have contributed to a hostile environment around the club and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the executive team and the board. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

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

'Rodgers' Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Strategy Again

To return to happier days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. The manager praised Desmond at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers respected him and, truly, to nobody else.

This was Desmond who took the heat when his returned occurred, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' back. Over time, the manager employed the charm, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the fans became a affectionate relationship once more.

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

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened again, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the sluggish process Celtic went about their transfer business, the interminable delay for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he stated about the necessity for what he called "flexibility" in the transfer window. Supporters agreed with him.

Despite the organization spent unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with Idah since having departed - the manager demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity inside the club and then walked away. When asked about his comments at his next media briefing he would usually downplay it and nearly reverse what he said.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, all are united, he'd claim. It appeared like he was engaging in a dangerous game.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly originated from a insider associated with the club. It claimed that the manager was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was orchestrating his departure plan.

He didn't want to be present and he was arranging his way out, this was the tone of the story.

Supporters were enraged. They then saw him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his directors did not back his vision to achieve success.

This disclosure was damaging, of course, and it was meant to hurt him, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a examination then we heard no more about it.

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

The regular {gripes