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Merely a quarter of an hour after Celtic released the news of their manager's surprising departure via a brief short communication, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

In 551-words, key investor Dermot Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

The man he convinced to join the team when Rangers were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. Plus the man he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for another club in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the severity of his takedown, the astonishing return of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an continuous circuit of appearances and the performance of all his past successes at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Considering comments he has expressed lately, he has been eager to secure a new position. He'll see this role as the perfect opportunity, a present from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he enjoyed such glory and adulation.

Would he give it up readily? It seems unlikely. Celtic could possibly make a call to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will serve as a balm for the moment.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' development was the harsh way the shareholder wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at defamation, a labeling of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-interest at the cost of others," stated Desmond.

For somebody who values propriety and places great store in dealings being conducted with confidentiality, if not complete privacy, this was another illustration of how unusual situations have grown at Celtic.

The major figure, the club's most powerful figure, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to make all the major decisions he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not participate in team annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to speak out.

He has been known on an rare moment to support the organization with private missives to news outlets, but no statement is made in public.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to remain. And that's exactly what he went against when launching all-out attack on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the team is that Rodgers resigned, but reviewing Desmond's invective, line by line, one must question why he allow it to reach this far down the line?

Assuming the manager is culpable of all of the things that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to ask why was the manager not dismissed?

Desmond has charged him of spinning things in public that were inconsistent with reality.

He says his statements "have contributed to a hostile environment around the team and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the management and the board. A portion of the abuse aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unjustified and improper."

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

His Aspirations Conflicted with the Club's Model Again

To return to better days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

This was Desmond who drew the heat when his comeback happened, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the lurch for another club.

Desmond had Rodgers' back. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the supporters turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

There was always - always - going to be a moment when his goals clashed with the club's operational approach, though.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened again, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish way the team went about their player acquisitions, the interminable waiting for prospects to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

Time and again he stated about the need for what he termed "agility" in the transfer window. The fans concurred with him.

Despite the organization spent record amounts of money in a calendar year on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have performed well so far, with one since having departed - the manager demanded increased resources and, often, he did it in openly.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity within the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his subsequent news conference he would usually minimize it and nearly reverse what he said.

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

A few months back there was a story in a publication that allegedly originated from a insider associated with the organization. It claimed that the manager was damaging Celtic with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He desired not to be there and he was engineering his way out, this was the implication of the story.

The fans were enraged. They then viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his honor because his board members wouldn't back his plans to achieve triumph.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to hurt Rodgers, which it accomplished. He called for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

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

The frequent {gripes