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Just fifteen minutes following Celtic issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a brief short communication, the howitzer arrived, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

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

This individual he persuaded to come to the club when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting in their place. And the man he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of his critique, the astonishing return of the former boss was almost an after-thought.

Two decades after his departure from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was dedicated to an unending circuit of appearances 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 lately, O'Neill has been eager to secure another job. He will view this role as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the environment where he enjoyed such glory and praise.

Will he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. The club might well make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

All-out Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the most significant shocking moment was the harsh way the shareholder wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a perpetrator of untruths, a spreader of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the expense of others," wrote Desmond.

For a person who values decorum and places great store in dealings being conducted with confidentiality, if not complete secrecy, this was another illustration of how abnormal things have grown at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's dominant figure, operates in the background. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to make all the important calls he pleases without having the responsibility of explaining them in any public forum.

He never attend club AGMs, sending his offspring, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in nature. And even then, he's slow to speak out.

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

This is precisely 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 club is that Rodgers resigned, but reading Desmond's invective, carefully, you have to wonder why did he permit it to reach this far down the line?

If the manager is guilty of every one of the things that Desmond is alleging he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to inquire why had been the manager not removed?

He has charged him of distorting things in public that were inconsistent with the facts.

He claims his statements "played a part to a hostile environment around the team and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the executive team and the directors. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unwarranted and unacceptable."

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

'Rodgers' Aspirations Clashed with Celtic's Strategy Again

Looking back to better days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him every chance. Rodgers deferred to him and, really, to no one other.

It was Desmond who took the criticism when Rodgers' comeback happened, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive hiring, the return of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as some other Celtic fans would have described it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' back. Over time, Rodgers employed the persuasion, achieved the victories and the honors, and an uneasy truce with the supporters became a love-in again.

There was always - consistently - going to be a point when Rodgers' ambition clashed with the club's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened again, with bells on, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the sluggish way Celtic went about their transfer business, the endless delay 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 "agility" in the transfer window. The fans concurred with him.

Despite the organization spent unprecedented sums of funds in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the costly another player and the significant Auston Trusty - all of whom have performed well to date, with Idah since having left - 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. When asked about his remarks at his next news conference he would typically minimize it and nearly contradict what he said.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like he was engaging in a risky strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly came from a source close to the organization. It said that the manager was harming Celtic with his open criticisms and that his true aim was managing his departure plan.

He desired not to be present and he was arranging his exit, that was the tone of the article.

The fans were enraged. They now saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his honor because his directors wouldn't support his plans to achieve success.

This disclosure was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to hurt Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we heard nothing further about it.

At that point it was clear the manager was losing the backing of the people above him.

The frequent {gripes