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Just a quarter of an hour following Celtic released the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock departure via a brief five-paragraph statement, the bombshell landed, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

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

This individual he convinced to come to the club when Rangers were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. And the man he once more turned to 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 almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Based on comments he has expressed lately, he has been eager to secure another job. He'll view this one as the perfect chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the place where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

Would he give it up readily? It seems unlikely. The club might well make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a soothing presence for the time being.

All-out Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' moment was the brutal way Desmond described the former manager.

It was a forceful endeavor at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For a person who values propriety and sets high importance in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, this was a further example of how abnormal things have grown at the club.

The major figure, the club's most powerful figure, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the power to take all the major decisions he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any open setting.

He never participate in club annual meetings, sending his offspring, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's reluctant to speak out.

He has been known on an occasion or two to defend the organization with private missives to news outlets, but nothing is heard in public.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to be. And it's exactly what he went against when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on that day.

The official line from the team is that Rodgers stepped down, but reading his criticism, line by line, you have to wonder why he permit it to get this far down the line?

Assuming the manager is guilty of every one of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it's fair to ask why was the coach not removed?

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

He says Rodgers' statements "played a part to a hostile environment around the team and encouraged animosity towards members of the management and the directors. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unwarranted and unacceptable."

What an extraordinary allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be preparing as we discuss.

His Aspirations Conflicted with the Club's Model Once More'

To return to better times, they were tight, the two men. The manager praised the shareholder at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers respected Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

This was Desmond who took the criticism when his comeback happened, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive appointment, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other Celtic fans would have described it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Over time, Rodgers turned on the charm, achieved the wins and the honors, and an fragile truce with the fans turned into a love-in once more.

There was always - always - going to be a point when Rodgers' ambition clashed with the club's business model, though.

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with bells on, over the last year. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish process 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 concerned.

Time and again he stated about the necessity for what he called "flexibility" in the transfer window. Supporters agreed with him.

Despite the club spent record amounts of funds in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the £9m another player and the significant Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with one since having left - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in public.

He planted a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then walked away. Upon questioning about his comments at his next media briefing he would typically minimize it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, all are united, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a risky strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that allegedly came from a source close to the organization. It said that the manager was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his exit strategy.

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

The fans were angered. They now viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his directors did not back his plans to bring triumph.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was meant to harm him, which it accomplished. He called for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. If there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

At that point it was plain the manager was shedding the backing of the individuals above him.

The frequent {gripes