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Merely a quarter of an hour after the club released the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the bombshell arrived, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious fury.

Through 551-words, key investor Dermot Desmond savaged his former ally.

The man he convinced to come to the team when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and required being in their place. Plus the man he once more relied on after the previous manager left for another club in the summer of 2023.

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

Two decades after his departure from the organization, and after much of his recent life was dedicated to an unending circuit of appearances and the playing of all his old hits at the team, Martin O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

Currently - and maybe for a while. Based on things he has said recently, he has been keen to secure a new position. He will view this role as the perfect opportunity, a present from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such success and praise.

Will he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well reach out to sound out their ex-manager, but O'Neill will serve as a balm for the time being.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' development was the brutal way the shareholder described Rodgers.

This constituted a forceful attempt at character assassination, a labeling of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," stated he.

For a person who values propriety and sets high importance in dealings being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, this was a further illustration of how unusual things have grown at the club.

The major figure, the organization's dominant figure, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the power to make all the major calls he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He does not attend club annual meetings, sending his offspring, Ross, instead. He seldom, if ever, gives interviews about Celtic unless they're glowing in tone. And even then, he's reluctant to speak out.

He has been known on an rare moment to support the organization with private messages to news outlets, but nothing is made in public.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to remain. And that's just what he went against when going full thermonuclear on the manager on Monday.

The official line from the club is that Rodgers resigned, but reading Desmond's invective, carefully, you have to wonder why did he allow it to get this far down the line?

If the manager is guilty of every one of the things that Desmond is alleging he's responsible for, then it's fair to inquire why was the manager not dismissed?

Desmond has accused him of spinning information in public that did not tally with the facts.

He says his words "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the team and fuelled hostility towards members of the management and the board. Some of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

Such an remarkable allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

'Rodgers' Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Model Once More'

To return to better times, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised Desmond at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to him and, truly, to nobody else.

It was the figure who took the heat when Rodgers' returned occurred, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most divisive hiring, the return of the returning hero for a few or, as other supporters would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for another club.

Desmond had his support. Gradually, the manager turned on the charm, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the fans turned into a love-in once more.

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

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired again, with bells on, recently. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish way the team conducted their transfer business, the interminable waiting for targets to be secured, then missed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he spoke about the necessity for what he termed "flexibility" in the transfer window. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the organization spent unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the £11m one signing, the costly another player and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have performed well to date, with Idah since having departed - Rodgers pushed for increased resources and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity inside the team and then walked away. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would usually minimize it and almost contradict what he said.

Internal issues? No, no, all are united, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that allegedly came from a insider associated with the organization. It said that the manager was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He desired not to be there and he was arranging his exit, that was the implication of the article.

Supporters were enraged. They then saw him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his directors wouldn't support his vision to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to harm him, which it did. He called for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we heard no more about it.

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

The frequent {gripes