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Just a quarter of an hour after the club released the announcement of their manager's surprising departure via a brief short communication, the bombshell arrived, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

Through 551-words, major shareholder Dermot Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

The man he persuaded to join the club when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and needed putting in their place. Plus the figure he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the severity of Desmond's critique, the astonishing return of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an unending circuit of appearances and the playing of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a time. Based on comments he has expressed lately, he has been eager to secure a new position. He'll see this role as the perfect chance, a present from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the environment where he enjoyed such glory and adulation.

Would he give it up easily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly reach out to contact their ex-manager, but O'Neill will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - as surreal as it is - can be set aside because the biggest shocking development was the harsh manner Desmond described the former manager.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the expense of others," stated Desmond.

For a person who values propriety and places great store in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, this was a further example of how unusual things have grown at the club.

The major figure, the organization's most powerful figure, moves in the background. The remote leader, the one with the power to take all the important calls he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any public forum.

He never participate in team annual meetings, dispatching his son, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an rare moment to defend the club with confidential missives to media organisations, but nothing is heard in public.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to be. And that's exactly what he contradicted when launching all-out attack on Rodgers on that day.

The official line from the club is that he stepped down, but reviewing his criticism, carefully, one must question why he allow it to reach such a critical point?

Assuming the manager is guilty of every one of the things that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to inquire why had been the manager not removed?

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

He claims Rodgers' statements "played a part to a toxic environment around the team and fuelled animosity towards individuals of the executive team and the board. Some of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

What an remarkable charge, indeed. Lawyers might be preparing as we speak.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Conflicted with Celtic's Model Again

To return to happier days, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers praised Desmond at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Rodgers deferred to him and, truly, to nobody else.

It was the figure who took the criticism when his comeback happened, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as other supporters would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had his back. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the charm, achieved the victories and the honors, and an fragile truce with the supporters became a affectionate relationship once more.

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

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with bells on, over the last year. He spoke openly about the slow way Celtic went about their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for prospects to be landed, then not landed, as was frequently the case as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he spoke about the need for what he called "flexibility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Despite the club splurged unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well so far, with Idah already having left - the manager demanded more and more and, often, he expressed this in public.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his next media briefing he would usually minimize it and almost reverse what he said.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like he was playing a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a source close to the organization. It said that Rodgers was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

The fans were angered. They now viewed him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his directors did not back his vision to achieve success.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was meant to hurt him, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be removed. Whether there was a examination then we learned no more about it.

By then it was clear the manager was shedding the backing of the people above him.

The regular {gripes