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Merely a quarter of an hour following Celtic issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock departure via a perfunctory short communication, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent fury.

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

This individual he persuaded to come to the club when Rangers were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. And the figure he again turned to after the previous manager left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of his takedown, the jaw-dropping comeback of the former boss was almost an after-thought.

Two decades after his departure from the organization, and after a large part of his recent life was dedicated to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a while. Considering comments he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been keen to get another job. He'll see this one as the perfect opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Would he give it up readily? 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 Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the biggest shocking moment was the harsh manner the shareholder described Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the expense of others," stated Desmond.

For somebody who values propriety and sets high importance in business being conducted with discretion, if not outright privacy, this was a further illustration of how abnormal situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the club's dominant figure, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to make all the important decisions he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He does not attend team AGMs, dispatching his offspring, his son, instead. He seldom, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to speak out.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to support the club with private missives to media organisations, but no statement is made in public.

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

The official line from the club is that Rodgers stepped down, but reviewing his invective, carefully, one must question why he allow it to get this far down the line?

Assuming Rodgers is guilty of all of the things that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why was the manager not removed?

He has accused him of distorting information in open forums that did not tally with reality.

He says his words "played a part to a toxic environment around the club and encouraged hostility towards members of the executive team and the directors. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

Such an remarkable charge, that is. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we discuss.

His Aspirations Clashed with the Club's Model Again

Looking back to better times, they were close, the two men. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Brendan respected him and, really, to nobody else.

It was the figure who drew the heat when Rodgers' returned occurred, after the previous manager.

This marked the most divisive appointment, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other supporters would have described it, the arrival of the shameless one, who departed in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had his support. Over time, Rodgers turned on the charm, delivered the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the fans turned into a love-in once more.

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

It happened in his first incarnation and it happened again, with added intensity, over the last year. He spoke openly about the sluggish way Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the endless waiting for targets to be landed, then not landed, as was frequently the case as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he spoke about the necessity for what he called "agility" in the transfer window. Supporters concurred with him.

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the £11m Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have cut it so far, with one since having left - the manager pushed for increased resources and, often, he expressed this in public.

He planted a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the team and then walked away. When asked about his comments at his next media briefing he would usually minimize it and nearly contradict what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, all are united, he'd say. It looked like he was engaging in a risky strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a insider associated with the club. It said that Rodgers was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be there and he was engineering his way out, that was the implication of the article.

Supporters were angered. They now viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his directors did not support his plans to bring success.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was meant to harm Rodgers, which it did. He called for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a examination then we heard nothing further about it.

At that point it was clear the manager was shedding the backing of the people in charge.

The regular {gripes