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Just a quarter of an hour after the club released the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock departure via a perfunctory short statement, the howitzer landed, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent fury.

In 551-words, key investor Desmond savaged his old chum.

The man he persuaded to come to the team when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting in their place. Plus the man he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for 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 practically an after-thought.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his recent life was dedicated to an continuous circuit of appearances and the performance of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a time. Based on comments he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been keen to secure another job. He will see this one as the ultimate chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such glory and adulation.

Would he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but the new appointment will serve as a balm for the moment.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's return - as surreal as it is - can be set aside because the most significant shocking development was the harsh manner Desmond described the former manager.

It was a forceful endeavor at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the cost of others," wrote Desmond.

For somebody who prizes propriety and places great store in business being done with confidentiality, if not complete privacy, this was a further example of how unusual situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the club's most powerful presence, operates in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to make all the major decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He never attend team AGMs, dispatching his son, his son, in his place. He seldom, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in tone. And even then, he's slow to speak out.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to support the organization with private messages to media organisations, but no statement is heard in the open.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to remain. And it's exactly what he went against when launching full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the team is that Rodgers resigned, but reviewing his invective, line by line, one must question why did he allow it to get such a critical point?

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

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

He claims his statements "played a part to a hostile environment around the team and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the board. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

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

His Ambition Clashed with the Club's Model Again

To return to happier times, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him every chance. Brendan respected him and, really, to no one other.

It was the figure who took the heat when Rodgers' comeback occurred, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as other supporters would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the lurch for Leicester.

The shareholder had his support. Gradually, the manager turned on the persuasion, delivered the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the fans became a affectionate relationship once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when Rodgers' ambition clashed with the club's business model, however.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow process the team went about their player acquisitions, the interminable waiting for targets to be secured, then missed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

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

Despite the organization spent unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have cut it so far, with Idah already having departed - Rodgers pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity inside the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his subsequent media briefing he would typically minimize it and almost reverse what he said.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, all are united, he'd claim. It appeared like he was playing a risky game.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly came from a source associated with the organization. It claimed that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his open criticisms and that his true aim was managing his departure plan.

He didn't want to be present and he was engineering his exit, that was the tone of the story.

Supporters were enraged. They now saw him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his board members wouldn't support his vision to bring triumph.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was meant to hurt him, which it accomplished. He called for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be removed. If there was a examination then we learned no more about it.

At that point it was clear Rodgers was losing the backing of the people above him.

The regular {gripes