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Just fifteen minutes after Celtic released the news of their manager's surprising departure via a brief short statement, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent fury.

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

This individual he persuaded to come to the team when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. And the figure he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of his takedown, the jaw-dropping return of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the club, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an unending series 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 time. Considering things he has said recently, he has been keen to secure another job. He'll view this role as the ultimate chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he enjoyed such glory and praise.

Would he relinquish it easily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club could possibly reach out to contact their ex-manager, but O'Neill will serve as a soothing presence for the time being.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - as surreal as it is - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' moment was the brutal way the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

This constituted a forceful attempt at defamation, a branding of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the cost of others," stated he.

For a person who values decorum and sets high importance in dealings being conducted with discretion, if not complete privacy, this was another example of how abnormal situations have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the organization's dominant presence, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to take all the important calls he pleases without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He does not attend team annual meetings, sending his son, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about Celtic unless they're hagiographic 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 messages to media organisations, but nothing is heard in public.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to be. And that's just what he contradicted when going all-out attack on the manager on that day.

The official line from the club is that he stepped down, but reviewing his invective, carefully, one must question why he permit it to get such a critical point?

If the manager is guilty of all of the things that the shareholder is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why was the coach not dismissed?

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

He says Rodgers' words "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the club and encouraged hostility towards members of the management and the directors. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

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

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

Looking back to happier days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised Desmond at every turn, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Rodgers deferred to Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

This was Desmond who took the criticism when his returned happened, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as other Celtic fans would have described it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the fans became a affectionate relationship once more.

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

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened again, with added intensity, recently. He publicly commented about the sluggish way the team went about their transfer business, the interminable waiting for targets to be landed, then not landed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was believed.

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

Despite the organization splurged record amounts of funds in a calendar year on the expensive Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the significant Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with Idah since having left - the manager pushed for increased resources and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity within the club and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would typically downplay it and almost contradict what he said.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, all are united, he'd say. It appeared like Rodgers was playing a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly came from a insider associated with the club. It claimed that Rodgers was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was orchestrating his departure plan.

He desired not to be there and he was engineering his way out, this was the tone of the article.

The fans were angered. They now saw him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his board members wouldn't support his plans to bring triumph.

The leak was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to hurt Rodgers, which it did. He called for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we learned no more about it.

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

The regular {gripes