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Just a quarter of an hour following the club issued the announcement of their manager's shock departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the howitzer arrived, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in obvious fury.

In an extensive statement, key investor Dermot Desmond savaged his former ally.

The man he persuaded to join the club when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and required being in their place. And the figure he once more turned to after the previous manager left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the severity of his critique, the jaw-dropping comeback of Martin O'Neill was practically an after-thought.

Two decades after his departure from the club, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an continuous circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a time. Based on things he has said recently, he has been eager to secure a new position. He'll see this role as the perfect chance, a present from the club's legacy, a return to the environment where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Will he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly make a call to contact Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

The new manager's return - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the most significant shocking development was the brutal manner the shareholder wrote of Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the expense of others," wrote Desmond.

For a person who prizes decorum and places great store in dealings being done with discretion, if not outright privacy, here was a further illustration of how unusual situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the club's dominant presence, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to take all the major calls he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not participate in club annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's reluctant to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the organization with private missives to media organisations, but no statement is heard in public.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to be. And that's just what he contradicted when going full thermonuclear on the manager on that day.

The official line from the club is that he stepped down, but reading Desmond's criticism, line by line, you have to wonder why he permit it to reach this far down the line?

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of every one of the things that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why was the coach not dismissed?

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

He says his words "have contributed to a toxic environment around the team and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the board. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

What an remarkable charge, indeed. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

'Rodgers' Ambition Conflicted with Celtic's Strategy Once More'

Looking back to better times, they were tight, the two men. The manager lauded Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers respected him and, truly, to nobody else.

It was the figure who drew the criticism when his returned occurred, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most controversial appointment, the return 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 another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Over time, Rodgers employed the charm, delivered the victories and the honors, and an uneasy truce with the fans became a affectionate relationship once more.

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

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened again, with bells on, recently. He publicly commented about the slow process Celtic conducted their transfer business, the interminable waiting for targets to be landed, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

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

Despite the club spent record amounts of money in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the £9m another player and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have cut it so far, with one already having left - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in public.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity within the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his next media briefing he would usually downplay it and nearly contradict what he said.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like Rodgers was playing a dangerous game.

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly originated from a insider close to the organization. It said that Rodgers was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be present 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 martyr who might be removed on his shield because his directors did not back his plans to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was meant to hurt Rodgers, which it did. He called for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we heard nothing further about it.

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

The regular {gripes