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Just a quarter of an hour after Celtic released the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a perfunctory short communication, the howitzer arrived, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

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

This individual he convinced to come to the team when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting in their place. And the man he once more turned to after the previous manager departed to another club in the summer of 2023.

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

Two decades after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his recent life was dedicated to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his old hits at the team, O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Based on comments he has expressed lately, he has been eager to get a new position. He will view this one as the perfect chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the environment where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

Would he relinquish it easily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well reach out to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will serve as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's return - however strange as it is - can be set aside because the biggest shocking moment was the brutal manner Desmond described Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded attempt at defamation, a labeling of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the expense of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For a person who prizes propriety and sets high importance in dealings being done with discretion, if not outright secrecy, this was a further example of how unusual things have grown at the club.

The major figure, the club's dominant figure, operates in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the power to make all the major calls he pleases without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He does not participate in club annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives 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 occasion or two to defend the club with private missives to news outlets, but nothing is heard in the open.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to be. And that's exactly what he contradicted when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the team is that he resigned, but reading his criticism, line by line, one must question why did he permit it to get this far down the line?

If the manager is guilty of every one of the accusations that Desmond is claiming he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to inquire why was the coach not dismissed?

He has charged him of spinning things in public that did not tally with the facts.

He says Rodgers' words "have contributed to a hostile environment around the club and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the management and the board. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

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

His Aspirations Conflicted with Celtic's Model Again

To return to happier days, they were close, the two men. Rodgers lauded Desmond at every turn, thanked him every chance. Rodgers deferred to him and, really, to no one other.

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

It was the most controversial appointment, the return of the returning hero for a few or, as other supporters would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the difficulty for Leicester.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Gradually, the manager employed the persuasion, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the supporters became a affectionate relationship again.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a moment when Rodgers' goals clashed with the club's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with bells on, over the last year. He spoke openly about the slow way Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the endless delay for targets to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

Time and again he spoke about the need for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. Supporters agreed with him.

Despite the club splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m further acquisition - all of whom have cut it to date, with one already having departed - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, often, he did it in public.

He planted a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his subsequent news conference he would usually downplay it and nearly reverse what he said.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, all are united, he'd say. It looked like he was playing a risky game.

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a source close to the club. It claimed that Rodgers was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was managing his departure plan.

He desired not to be present and he was arranging his way out, that was the implication of the story.

Supporters were enraged. They now saw him as similar to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his directors 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 demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. If there was a examination then we heard no more about it.

By then it was plain the manager was shedding the backing of the people in charge.

The frequent {gripes