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Just a quarter of an hour after Celtic released the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' shock departure via a perfunctory short statement, the bombshell arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

Through an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot Desmond savaged his old chum.

This individual he persuaded to join the team when Rangers were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting in their place. And the figure he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the severity of his critique, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the organization, and after much of his recent life was dedicated to an continuous series of appearances and the playing of all his old hits at the team, Martin O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a while. Considering comments he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been eager to get a new position. He'll see this role as the perfect chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he enjoyed such glory and adulation.

Would he relinquish it readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well reach out to sound out Postecoglou, but the new appointment will serve as a balm for the moment.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the biggest 'wow!' development was the brutal manner Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a source of untruths, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the expense of others," stated he.

For somebody who values decorum and places great store in dealings being conducted with confidentiality, if not complete privacy, here was a further example of how unusual situations have become at Celtic.

The major figure, the organization's dominant presence, operates in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the power to make all the major calls he pleases without having the obligation 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 media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to speak out.

He has been known on an rare moment to support the organization with private missives to news outlets, but no statement is heard in the open.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to be. And it's exactly what he went against when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on that day.

The directive from the team is that he resigned, but reviewing his criticism, carefully, one must question why he allow it to get such a critical point?

If Rodgers is culpable of every one of the things that Desmond is claiming he's responsible for, then it's fair to ask why was the manager not removed?

He has charged him of distorting things in open forums that were inconsistent with the facts.

He says Rodgers' statements "played a part to a hostile environment around the club and encouraged animosity towards members of the management and the board. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and improper."

What an extraordinary charge, that is. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we speak.

His Ambition Conflicted with Celtic's Strategy Again

Looking back to better days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. The manager praised the shareholder at every turn, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Rodgers deferred to him and, truly, to no one other.

It was the figure who took the heat when Rodgers' returned happened, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most controversial appointment, the return of the prodigal son for a few or, as other supporters would have described it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the lurch for Leicester.

The shareholder had his back. Gradually, the manager employed the charm, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the fans turned into a love-in again.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a moment when Rodgers' ambition clashed with Celtic's operational approach, however.

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired once more, with bells on, recently. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish process the team conducted their transfer business, the interminable delay for targets to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

Time and again he stated about the necessity for what he called "agility" in the transfer window. Supporters agreed with him.

Even when the club splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well to date, with one since having departed - Rodgers pushed for increased resources and, often, he expressed this in public.

He set a bomb about a internal disunity within the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his subsequent media briefing he would typically minimize it and almost contradict what he said.

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

A few months back there was a report in a publication that purportedly originated from a insider close to the club. It claimed that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his exit strategy.

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

The fans were enraged. They then viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his honor because his directors wouldn't support his plans to bring triumph.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

By then it was clear Rodgers was losing the backing of the people above him.

The regular {gripes