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Just fifteen minutes following Celtic issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' shock departure via a perfunctory short communication, the bombshell arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

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

The man he persuaded to join the team when their rivals were gaining ground in that period and required being back in a box. 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 jaw-dropping comeback of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Two decades after his departure from the club, and after much of his recent life was given over to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his past successes at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Based on things he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been keen to secure another job. He will see this one as the perfect opportunity, a gift from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such success and adulation.

Would he give it up easily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well make a call to sound out their ex-manager, but O'Neill will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's return - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the biggest shocking development was the harsh manner Desmond described Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," stated he.

For somebody who prizes propriety and sets high importance in dealings being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, here was another example of how unusual things have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's dominant presence, moves in the margins. The remote leader, the individual with the authority to make all the major decisions he pleases without having the obligation of justifying them in any open setting.

He never attend club annual meetings, sending his offspring, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's reluctant to speak out.

He has been known 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 preferred it to remain. And that's exactly what he contradicted when launching full thermonuclear on the manager on Monday.

The official line from the club is that Rodgers resigned, but reading Desmond's invective, line by line, you have to wonder why did he permit it to get such a critical point?

If the manager is guilty of all of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the manager not removed?

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

He claims Rodgers' words "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the club and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the executive team and the board. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

What an remarkable charge, indeed. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Conflicted with the Club's Model Once More'

Looking back to better times, they were tight, the two men. The manager lauded the shareholder at every turn, thanked him every chance. Brendan respected Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

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

This marked the most divisive hiring, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other Celtic fans would have described it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' back. Over time, the manager turned on the charm, achieved the victories and the honors, and an fragile peace with the supporters became a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a moment when his ambition came in contact with Celtic's operational approach, however.

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired once more, with added intensity, recently. He publicly commented about the slow process Celtic went about their transfer business, the interminable delay for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

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

Even when the club spent record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the £9m Adam Idah and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have performed well so far, with one already having departed - the manager pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in openly.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion within the club and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his next media briefing he would typically minimize it and nearly contradict what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a report in a publication that purportedly came from a source close to the club. It said that the manager was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his departure plan.

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

The fans were angered. They now viewed him as similar to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his directors wouldn't back his plans to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to hurt Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

At that point it was plain the manager was shedding the support of the people in charge.

The regular {gripes