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Just a quarter of an hour following the club issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock departure via a brief short statement, the howitzer arrived, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent anger.

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

The man he convinced to join the team when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and needed putting in their place. Plus the man he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou 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 almost an after-thought.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after much of his recent life was given over to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his past successes at the team, Martin O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a while. Based on comments he has said lately, he has been keen to secure a new position. He'll see this one as the ultimate chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such glory and praise.

Will he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will serve as a balm for the moment.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

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

This constituted a forceful endeavor at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For somebody who prizes propriety and places great store in dealings being done with discretion, if not outright privacy, this was a further illustration of how abnormal things have grown at the club.

Desmond, the club's most powerful figure, moves in the margins. The remote leader, the individual with the power to make all the major decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He never participate in club AGMs, dispatching his offspring, Ross, instead. He seldom, if ever, gives interviews about the team unless they're hagiographic in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the club with confidential missives to news outlets, but nothing is made in public.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to be. And it's exactly what he contradicted when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the team is that Rodgers resigned, but reviewing his criticism, carefully, you have to wonder why he permit it to get such a critical point?

Assuming the manager is guilty of every one of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it's fair to inquire why was the coach not dismissed?

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

He claims Rodgers' statements "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the team and fuelled animosity towards individuals of the management and the board. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unjustified and improper."

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

'Rodgers' Aspirations Clashed with Celtic's Model Once More'

Looking back to happier days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded Desmond at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan respected Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

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

It was the most divisive hiring, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other supporters would have described it, the arrival of the shameless one, who departed in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Over time, Rodgers employed the persuasion, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an fragile peace with the supporters turned into a affectionate relationship again.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when his ambition clashed with the club's operational approach, however.

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired once more, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow way the team conducted their player acquisitions, the endless delay for targets to be secured, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

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

Despite the organization spent unprecedented sums of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the £9m another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it to date, with one since having departed - the manager pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He set 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 usually downplay it and nearly contradict what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It appeared like he was playing a dangerous game.

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that allegedly came 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 exit strategy.

He desired not to be present and he was engineering his exit, this was the implication of the story.

Supporters were enraged. They then saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his honor because his board members wouldn't back his vision to achieve success.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to hurt Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. If there was a probe then we heard no more about it.

At that point it was clear Rodgers was shedding the backing of the individuals in charge.

The regular {gripes