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Just a quarter of an hour following Celtic issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a brief short statement, the bombshell landed, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

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

The man he persuaded to come to the team when Rangers were gaining ground in that period and required being back in a box. Plus the man he once more relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the ferocity of Desmond's critique, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after much of his recent life was given over to an continuous circuit of appearances and the playing of all his old hits at the team, Martin O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and perhaps for a while. Based on things he has said lately, he has been eager to get another job. He'll see this role as the ultimate chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such success and praise.

Will he give it up easily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly make a call to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will serve as a soothing presence for the time being.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be parked because the most significant 'wow!' moment was the brutal manner the shareholder described the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of untruths, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For somebody who values decorum and places great store in business being done with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, this was another illustration of how abnormal things have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's dominant figure, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the power to take all the major decisions he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He never attend team AGMs, sending his offspring, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's slow to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the organization with private missives to news outlets, but nothing is made in public.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to be. And it's exactly what he contradicted when going all-out attack on Rodgers on that day.

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

If Rodgers is culpable of all of the things that the shareholder is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the coach not removed?

He has accused him of distorting information in open forums that did not tally with the facts.

He says Rodgers' words "played a part to a hostile environment around the club and fuelled hostility towards members of the executive team and the directors. Some of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unwarranted and improper."

Such an extraordinary allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we discuss.

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

To return to happier days, they were tight, the two men. The manager praised Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers respected Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who drew the criticism when his returned occurred, after the previous manager.

This marked the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as other supporters would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Over time, the manager employed the persuasion, achieved the victories and the honors, and an fragile peace with the supporters turned into a affectionate relationship again.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when his goals clashed with Celtic's business model, however.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with bells on, recently. Rodgers spoke openly about the slow way Celtic conducted their transfer business, the interminable waiting for targets to be secured, then missed, as was frequently the case as far as he was believed.

Time and again he spoke about the need for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Despite the club spent unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the £11m Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with Idah since having left - the manager pushed for increased resources and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity within the team and then walked away. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would typically minimize it and almost contradict what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like he was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly originated from a insider close to the club. It claimed that the manager was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his departure plan.

He didn't want to be there and he was arranging his way out, 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 honor because his board members wouldn't back his plans to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. If there was a probe then we heard no more about it.

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

The regular {gripes