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Just fifteen minutes following the club issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with clear signs in obvious anger.

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

This individual he persuaded to come to the club when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and required being back in a box. And the figure he once more turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of his takedown, the astonishing comeback of the former boss was almost an after-thought.

Two decades after his departure from the club, and after a large part of his recent life was given over to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his past successes at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a time. Based on comments he has expressed lately, he has been keen to secure a new position. He'll see this one as the perfect chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the environment where he experienced such glory and praise.

Would he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well reach out to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will serve as a soothing presence for the moment.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's return - however strange as it may be - can be set aside because the most significant shocking development was the brutal manner Desmond described the former manager.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "One individual's wish for self-preservation at the cost of others," stated Desmond.

For a person who values propriety and places great store in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not complete privacy, here was another example of how unusual situations have become at Celtic.

The major figure, the club's most powerful figure, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to make all the major calls he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not participate in team AGMs, dispatching his offspring, Ross, in his place. He seldom, if ever, gives interviews about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in nature. And still, he's reluctant to communicate.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the club with private missives to media organisations, but no statement is heard in public.

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

The official line from the club is that he stepped down, but reading Desmond's invective, line by line, one must question why he allow it to get this far down the line?

If Rodgers is culpable of every one of the accusations that Desmond is alleging he's responsible for, then it's fair to inquire why had been the coach not dismissed?

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

He claims Rodgers' statements "played a part to a hostile environment around the team and fuelled animosity towards individuals of the management and the directors. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unwarranted and unacceptable."

What an extraordinary charge, indeed. Lawyers might be mobilising as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Model Again

To return to happier days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded the shareholder at every turn, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Rodgers deferred to him and, really, to no one other.

It was Desmond who took the criticism when his comeback occurred, post-Postecoglou.

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

Desmond had his support. Over time, Rodgers turned on the charm, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the supporters turned into a love-in again.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when his goals came in contact with the club's operational approach, though.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it transpired once more, with added intensity, recently. He publicly commented about the sluggish way the team went about their transfer business, the interminable delay for prospects to be secured, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he spoke about the necessity for what he called "agility" in the market. Supporters agreed with him.

Despite the organization splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the £11m Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m further acquisition - all of whom have performed well so far, with Idah since having departed - the manager demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he did it in openly.

He planted a controversy about a lack of cohesion within the club and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would usually minimize it and nearly contradict what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It looked like he was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that allegedly came from a source associated with the organization. It said that Rodgers was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his exit strategy.

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

Supporters were angered. They now saw him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his board members did not back his vision to achieve success.

The leak was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to hurt 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.

By then it was plain Rodgers was shedding the backing of the people above him.

The frequent {gripes