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Just a quarter of an hour after Celtic released the news of their manager's surprising departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph statement, the howitzer arrived, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious anger.

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

The man he persuaded to join the team when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and required being back in a box. Plus the man he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the astonishing return of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after much of his latter years was given over to an unending series of appearances and the performance of all his past successes at the team, Martin O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

Currently - and perhaps for a while. Considering comments he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been keen to secure a new position. He will see this role as the perfect chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Will he give it up easily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly reach out to contact their ex-manager, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's return - however strange as it is - can be parked because the most significant shocking development was the brutal way the shareholder wrote of Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," stated he.

For somebody who values propriety and sets high importance in dealings being conducted with discretion, if not complete privacy, here was a further illustration of how unusual situations have become at Celtic.

The major figure, the organization's most powerful figure, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to take all the important decisions he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any public forum.

He never attend club annual meetings, dispatching his son, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to speak out.

He has been known on an rare moment to support the club with confidential messages to media organisations, but no statement is heard in the open.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to be. And it's exactly what he went against when launching all-out attack on Rodgers on Monday.

The official line from the team is that Rodgers stepped down, but reading his invective, carefully, you have to wonder why did he allow it to reach such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is guilty of all of the things that Desmond is alleging he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the manager not removed?

He has accused him of spinning information in public that did not tally with reality.

He claims his words "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the club and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the directors. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unjustified and improper."

What an extraordinary charge, that is. Lawyers might be preparing as we speak.

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

Looking back to happier times, they were tight, the two men. The manager lauded the shareholder at every turn, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Rodgers respected him and, really, to no one other.

This was the figure who took the heat when Rodgers' comeback happened, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most controversial appointment, the return of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as other supporters would have described it, the return of the shameless one, who left them in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had his back. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an fragile peace with the supporters became a affectionate relationship again.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a point when Rodgers' goals clashed with the club's operational approach, though.

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired once more, with bells on, recently. He spoke openly about the sluggish process the team conducted their transfer business, the interminable waiting for targets to be secured, 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 market. The fans agreed with him.

Even when the organization spent record amounts of funds in a calendar year on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have cut it so far, with one already having left - Rodgers demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He planted a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his next media briefing he would typically minimize it and almost contradict what he said.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like he was engaging in a risky game.

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

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

Supporters were enraged. They now saw him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his board members wouldn't support his plans to achieve success.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to hurt him, which it did. He called for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be dismissed. If there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

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

The frequent {gripes