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Merely a quarter of an hour after the club released the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

In an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

This individual he convinced to join the team when Rangers were gaining ground in 2016 and required being in their place. Plus the figure he once more turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for another club in the summer of 2023.

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

Twenty years after his departure 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 Celtic, Martin O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a while. Considering comments he has said recently, O'Neill has been keen to get a new position. He will view this role as the ultimate chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he experienced such success and adulation.

Would he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic might well make a call to sound out their ex-manager, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the moment.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's reappearance - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the most significant shocking development was the harsh way the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; divisive, misleading and unjustifiable. "One individual's wish for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For somebody who prizes propriety and sets high importance in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, here was a further illustration of how unusual situations have become at the club.

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

He never participate in team AGMs, dispatching his son, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's slow to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to defend 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 just what he contradicted when going all-out attack on the manager on Monday.

The directive from the club is that he stepped down, but reading his invective, carefully, one must question why did he permit it to reach this far down the line?

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

He has charged him of spinning information in open forums that were inconsistent with the facts.

He claims his statements "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the club and fuelled animosity towards members of the executive team and the board. Some of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

What an remarkable charge, indeed. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

'Rodgers' Ambition Clashed with the Club's Strategy Again

To return to happier times, they were close, the two men. Rodgers praised Desmond at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers respected him and, truly, to no one other.

It was the figure who took the criticism when his comeback happened, after the previous manager.

It was the most controversial appointment, the return of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other supporters would have described it, the return of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

The shareholder had his back. Over time, the manager turned on the charm, achieved the wins and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the fans turned into a love-in again.

There was always - consistently - going to be a moment when his ambition came in contact with Celtic's business model, however.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with bells on, over the last year. He publicly commented about the sluggish way the team went about their transfer business, the interminable delay for targets to be secured, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

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

Despite the organization splurged record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the costly another player and the significant Auston Trusty - all of whom have performed well so far, with one since having left - the manager pushed for more and more and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion within the club and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his next news conference he would usually downplay it and nearly contradict what he stated.

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

A few months back there was a report in a publication that allegedly came from a insider associated with the club. It said that the manager was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was managing his exit strategy.

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

Supporters were enraged. They now viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his honor because his directors wouldn't back his plans to achieve triumph.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be removed. If there was a probe then we heard nothing further about it.

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

The regular {gripes