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Merely a quarter of an hour after Celtic issued the news of their manager's shock resignation via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the bombshell landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious fury.

In an extensive statement, key investor Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

The man he persuaded to come to the team when Rangers were gaining ground in that period and needed putting back in a box. And the figure he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of his takedown, the astonishing comeback of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

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

Currently - and perhaps for a time. Based on comments he has expressed recently, he has been keen to secure another job. He'll view this one as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Will he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly make a call to contact Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a soothing presence for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's return - however strange as it is - can be parked because the most significant 'wow!' moment was the harsh way Desmond described Rodgers.

It was a forceful endeavor at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of untruths, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For somebody who values decorum and places great store in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not complete privacy, here was a further illustration of how abnormal situations have grown at the club.

Desmond, the club's dominant presence, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to take all the important calls he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any open setting.

He does not attend team AGMs, dispatching his son, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

There have been instances on an rare moment to defend the organization with confidential missives to news outlets, but no statement is heard in the open.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to remain. And it's exactly what he contradicted when going all-out attack on the manager on that day.

The official line from the club is that Rodgers stepped down, but reviewing Desmond's invective, line by line, one must question why did he permit it to get this far down the line?

Assuming the manager is guilty of every one of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why was the coach not removed?

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

He claims his words "played a part to a hostile environment around the team and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the directors. Some of the criticism directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

Such an remarkable charge, that is. Lawyers might be preparing as we discuss.

His Ambition Clashed with the Club's Strategy Again

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

This was Desmond who drew the criticism when his comeback occurred, post-Postecoglou.

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

The shareholder had his back. Over time, the manager employed the persuasion, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an fragile peace with the supporters turned into a love-in once more.

There was always - consistently - going to be a moment when Rodgers' goals clashed with Celtic's business model, however.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow way Celtic went about their player acquisitions, the endless waiting for prospects to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was believed.

Time and again he spoke about the necessity for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. Supporters concurred with him.

Despite the club spent unprecedented sums 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 cut it so far, with Idah since having left - the manager demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his subsequent news conference he would typically minimize it and almost reverse what he stated.

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

Earlier this year there was a report in a publication that purportedly originated from a insider associated with the club. It claimed that Rodgers was damaging the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was orchestrating his departure plan.

He didn't want to be there and he was arranging his exit, 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 board members wouldn't support his plans to achieve success.

This disclosure was damaging, of course, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

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

The frequent {gripes