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Merely a quarter of an hour following Celtic released the announcement of their manager's shock departure via a perfunctory short statement, the bombshell landed, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious anger.

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

The man he convinced to come to the club when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting in their place. Plus the man he again relied on after the previous manager departed to another club in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's critique, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was almost an after-thought.

Twenty years after his exit from the club, and after much of his latter years was given over to an continuous series of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

Currently - and perhaps for a time. Based on things he has said lately, O'Neill has been eager to secure another job. He'll see this one as the ultimate chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the environment where he experienced such success and adulation.

Would he give it up easily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well make a call to contact Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's return - however strange as it is - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' moment was the harsh way Desmond wrote of the former manager.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of untruths, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the expense of others," wrote he.

For somebody who values propriety and sets high importance in business being done with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, here was a further example of how abnormal situations have grown at Celtic.

Desmond, the organization's dominant figure, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to take all the major calls he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He never participate in club annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, his son, instead. He seldom, if ever, does media talks about Celtic 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 support the club with private missives to media organisations, but nothing is heard in the open.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to be. 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 Desmond's invective, carefully, one must question why he allow it to get this far down the line?

If Rodgers is culpable of all of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to inquire why was the coach not removed?

He has charged him of distorting things in public that did not tally with reality.

He claims Rodgers' statements "played a part to a toxic environment around the team and fuelled hostility towards members of the executive team and the board. A portion of the abuse aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

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

His Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Strategy Once More'

Looking back to better days, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers praised the shareholder at every turn, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Brendan respected him and, truly, to nobody else.

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

It was the most controversial hiring, the reappearance of the returning hero for a few or, as other supporters would have described it, the return of the shameless one, who left them in the lurch for another club.

Desmond had Rodgers' back. Gradually, the manager turned on the persuasion, delivered the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the fans turned into a love-in again.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a moment when his goals came in contact with the club's operational approach, though.

It happened in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with added intensity, recently. He spoke openly about the slow way Celtic conducted their transfer business, the endless waiting for targets to be landed, then missed, 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.

Even when the club splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the £11m one signing, the costly another player and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have performed well to date, with Idah since having departed - Rodgers demanded more and more and, often, he did it in openly.

He planted a controversy about a lack of cohesion within the club and then walked away. Upon questioning about his comments at his next news conference he would typically 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 strategy.

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly came from a insider close to the club. It said that the manager was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was managing his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be there and he was engineering his way out, this was the tone of the article.

The fans were angered. 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 plans to bring success.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was meant to harm him, which it did. He called for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we heard no more about it.

By then it was plain Rodgers was losing the backing of the people in charge.

The regular {gripes