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Merely a quarter of an hour after Celtic issued the announcement of their manager's surprising departure via a perfunctory short statement, the howitzer landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent anger.

Through 551-words, key investor Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

The man he convinced to join the team when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and required being back in a box. Plus the figure he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was practically an after-thought.

Two decades after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his recent life was given over to an unending circuit of appearances and the playing of all his past successes at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a time. Based on comments he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been keen to get another job. He will view this role as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he experienced such glory and adulation.

Would he give it up readily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly reach out to contact their ex-manager, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the time being.

All-out Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the most significant shocking moment was the brutal way the shareholder described the former manager.

It was a forceful attempt at defamation, a labeling of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the cost of others," stated he.

For a person who values decorum and sets high importance in business being done with confidentiality, if not complete secrecy, this was a further illustration of how unusual situations have become at Celtic.

The major figure, the organization's dominant figure, operates in the background. The remote leader, the one with the power to take all the major calls he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He does not participate in club AGMs, sending his son, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the organization with confidential messages to media organisations, but nothing is made in the open.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And it's exactly what he went against when launching all-out attack on the manager on Monday.

The official line from the club is that Rodgers resigned, but reading Desmond's criticism, carefully, you have to wonder why did he allow it to reach such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is guilty of all of the things that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to ask why was the manager not removed?

Desmond has accused him of distorting things in open forums that were inconsistent with the facts.

He says his words "have contributed to a hostile environment around the team and encouraged animosity towards members of the management and the directors. Some of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and unacceptable."

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

His Aspirations Clashed with the Club's Strategy Once More'

Looking back to better times, they were close, the two men. The manager praised Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him every chance. Rodgers deferred to Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

This was the figure who drew the heat when Rodgers' returned occurred, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most divisive hiring, the return of the returning hero for a few or, as some other supporters would have described it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' back. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the charm, delivered the wins and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the supporters became a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a point when Rodgers' goals came in contact with the club's business model, however.

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired once more, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers spoke openly about the slow way Celtic went about their transfer business, the interminable waiting for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he spoke about the necessity for what he called "flexibility" in the market. Supporters agreed with him.

Despite the club spent unprecedented sums of funds in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the costly another player and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have performed well to date, with one since having departed - Rodgers demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in openly.

He planted a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the club and then walked away. Upon questioning about his comments at his subsequent news conference he would usually minimize it and almost contradict what he said.

Internal issues? Not at all, all are united, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly came from a insider close to the club. It claimed that Rodgers was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He desired not to be present and he was arranging his way out, this was the tone of the story.

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 vision to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to hurt him, which it accomplished. He called for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we heard nothing further about it.

At that point it was plain the manager was shedding the backing of the people above him.

The regular {gripes