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Just fifteen minutes after the club released the news of their manager's shock resignation via a perfunctory five-paragraph statement, the bombshell arrived, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent anger.

Through an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot Desmond savaged his former ally.

The man he convinced to come to the team when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. Plus the man he once more turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the ferocity of Desmond's critique, the astonishing comeback of the former boss was practically an after-thought.

Two decades after his departure from the organization, and after much of his latter years was given over to an unending circuit 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 things he has said lately, he has been keen to get another job. He'll view this role as the perfect chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he enjoyed such glory and praise.

Will he relinquish it easily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club could possibly make a call to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will serve as a balm for the moment.

All-out Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - however strange as it may be - can be set aside because the biggest 'wow!' development was the harsh way the shareholder described Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded attempt at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's wish for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," wrote he.

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

Desmond, the club's dominant figure, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to take all the major decisions he pleases without having the obligation of justifying them in any open setting.

He never participate in club AGMs, sending his son, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about the team unless they're glowing in tone. And still, he's slow to speak out.

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

This is precisely how he's preferred it to be. And that's just what he contradicted when launching full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

The official line from the team is that he resigned, but reading his criticism, carefully, one must question why did he allow it to get such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of all of the accusations that Desmond is claiming he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why had been the manager not dismissed?

He has accused him of spinning things in open forums that were inconsistent with reality.

He says Rodgers' statements "played a part to a hostile environment around the team and fuelled hostility towards members of the executive team and the directors. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unwarranted and improper."

Such an extraordinary allegation, indeed. Lawyers might be mobilising as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Conflicted with the Club's Strategy Again

To return to better times, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers lauded Desmond at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan respected Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

This was the figure who drew the heat when his comeback occurred, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other supporters would have described it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the difficulty for another club.

Desmond had his support. Over time, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the supporters became a love-in again.

There was always - always - going to be a moment when his ambition clashed with the club's business model, however.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with bells on, over the last year. He spoke openly about the sluggish way the team conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable waiting for targets to be secured, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he stated about the necessity for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Despite the organization splurged unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the £11m one signing, the costly another player and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have cut it so far, with one already having left - Rodgers pushed for increased resources and, often, he did it in public.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity within the team and then walked away. Upon questioning about his remarks at his next news conference he would typically downplay it and nearly reverse what he said.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, all are united, he'd claim. It appeared like Rodgers was engaging in a risky game.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly came from a insider close to the club. It said that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was orchestrating his departure plan.

He didn't want to be there and he was engineering his exit, this was the tone of the story.

The fans were angered. They now saw him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his directors wouldn't back his vision to bring success.

The leak was poisonous, of course, and it was meant to harm Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

By then it was clear Rodgers was losing the backing of the individuals above him.

The frequent {gripes