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Merely fifteen minutes following Celtic released the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' shock departure via a brief five-paragraph statement, the bombshell arrived, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent fury.

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

The man he persuaded to join the team when their rivals were gaining ground in that period and needed putting back in a box. And the man he again relied on after the previous manager left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the ferocity of his critique, the jaw-dropping comeback of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the club, and after much of his recent life was given over to an continuous series of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his old hits at the team, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a while. Based on comments he has expressed recently, he has been eager to secure another job. He'll view this one as the perfect chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Would he give it up easily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly reach out to sound out their ex-manager, but O'Neill will serve as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - as surreal as it is - can be set aside because the biggest 'wow!' moment was the brutal manner Desmond wrote of the former manager.

It was a full-blooded attempt at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the expense of others," wrote Desmond.

For somebody who prizes propriety and sets high importance in dealings being conducted with confidentiality, if not complete privacy, here was a further example of how abnormal things have become at the club.

The major figure, the organization's dominant presence, operates in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the power to make all the important decisions he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He never participate in team AGMs, dispatching his son, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to defend the organization with private messages to news outlets, but no statement is made in public.

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

The official line from the club is that Rodgers resigned, but reviewing his invective, carefully, you have to wonder 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 alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why was the manager not removed?

He has accused him of distorting things in public that did not tally with reality.

He claims Rodgers' words "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the team and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the management and the board. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

Such an extraordinary charge, indeed. Lawyers might be preparing as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Ambition Conflicted with Celtic's Strategy Once More'

Looking back to happier days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him every chance. Brendan deferred to Dermot and, really, to no one other.

This was the figure who took the heat when his returned happened, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most divisive appointment, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other supporters would have put it, the arrival of the shameless one, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

The shareholder had his support. Gradually, Rodgers employed the charm, delivered the victories and the trophies, and an fragile peace with the fans became a love-in again.

There was always - always - going to be a point when his goals came in contact with Celtic's operational approach, though.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired once more, with bells on, over the last year. Rodgers publicly commented about the sluggish process the team went about their transfer business, the endless waiting for prospects 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 termed "agility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with one since having departed - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, often, he did it in openly.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity inside the club and then walked away. When asked about his comments at his subsequent news conference he would typically minimize it and nearly contradict what he said.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like Rodgers was engaging in a risky strategy.

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly came from a insider associated with the organization. It claimed that the manager was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was managing his exit strategy.

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

The fans were angered. They then viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his directors wouldn't support his plans to achieve success.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was meant to hurt him, which it did. He called for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a examination then we learned no more about it.

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

The frequent {gripes