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Merely fifteen minutes following the club released the news of their manager's surprising departure via a perfunctory short communication, the howitzer landed, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent fury.

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

This individual he convinced to join the team when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting in their place. And the man he again turned to after the previous manager left for another club in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's critique, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was practically an after-thought.

Two decades after his exit from the organization, and after much of his latter years was given over to an unending series of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at the team, Martin O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a time. Considering things he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been eager to secure another job. He'll view this role as the ultimate chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he experienced such glory and praise.

Would he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic might well reach out to sound out Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the time being.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - as surreal as it is - can be set aside because the biggest shocking moment was the harsh way Desmond described Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a labeling of him as untrustful, a source of untruths, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the cost of others," wrote he.

For somebody who prizes propriety and places great store in business being done with discretion, if not complete secrecy, this was a further illustration of how unusual situations have grown at Celtic.

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

He never attend team AGMs, dispatching his offspring, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the organization with private messages to media organisations, but nothing is heard in the open.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to remain. And that's exactly what he contradicted when going full thermonuclear on the manager on Monday.

The official line from the team is that he stepped down, but reviewing his invective, line by line, one must question why he allow it to reach this far down the line?

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

He has accused him of spinning information in open forums that were inconsistent with the facts.

He claims Rodgers' statements "played a part to a hostile environment around the team and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the directors. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

What an remarkable allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be preparing as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Clashed with the Club's Strategy Again

Looking back to happier days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised Desmond at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

This was the figure who drew the criticism when Rodgers' comeback happened, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most controversial hiring, the return of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had his back. Gradually, the manager turned on the charm, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the supporters turned into a affectionate relationship again.

There was always - consistently - going to be a point when his goals clashed with Celtic's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it transpired once more, with bells on, recently. He publicly commented about the slow way the team went about their player acquisitions, the interminable 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 market. Supporters concurred with him.

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - none of whom have cut it so far, with one since having left - the manager demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in public.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would typically minimize it and almost reverse what he stated.

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

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly came from a source close to the organization. It claimed that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

The fans were angered. They then saw him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his honor 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 demanded for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

By then it was clear the manager was shedding the backing of the people above him.

The frequent {gripes