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Merely a quarter of an hour after Celtic released the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph statement, the bombshell arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

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

This individual he convinced to come to the club when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and needed putting back in a box. Plus the man he once more turned to after the previous manager left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

Such was the ferocity of his critique, the astonishing comeback of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Two decades after his departure from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an continuous series of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Considering things he has expressed recently, he has been keen to get another job. He will see this one as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such success and adulation.

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

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's return - however strange as it is - can be parked because the biggest shocking moment was the brutal manner the shareholder described the former manager.

It was a forceful attempt at defamation, a labeling of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," stated he.

For a person who values propriety and sets high importance in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, here was a further illustration of how abnormal things have grown at the club.

Desmond, the organization's most powerful presence, operates in the background. The remote leader, the one with the power to take all the important decisions he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not attend team AGMs, dispatching his offspring, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's slow to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to defend the organization with private messages to news outlets, but nothing is made in the open.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to remain. And that's just what he contradicted when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the club is that Rodgers stepped down, but reviewing his invective, line by line, you have to wonder why did he allow it to get this far down the line?

Assuming the manager is guilty of every one of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to inquire why was the coach not removed?

Desmond has accused him of spinning things in public that did not tally with reality.

He says Rodgers' statements "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the club and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the executive team and the board. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

What an remarkable charge, indeed. Lawyers might be mobilising as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Clashed with Celtic's Strategy Again

To return to better days, they were tight, the two men. The manager lauded Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him every chance. Rodgers respected Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who took the heat when his returned happened, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other supporters would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had his support. Gradually, the manager turned on the charm, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the supporters turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

There was always - always - going to be a point when Rodgers' ambition clashed with Celtic's business model, however.

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened again, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the sluggish process Celtic conducted their transfer business, the interminable waiting for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he stated about the need for what he termed "flexibility" in the transfer window. The fans concurred with him.

Despite the organization splurged record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the £9m another player and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have cut it so far, with Idah since having left - the manager demanded increased resources and, often, he expressed this in public.

He planted a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his next media briefing he would typically downplay it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous game.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly came from a insider close to the club. It claimed that the manager was harming the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

Supporters were enraged. They then saw him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his board members wouldn't back his vision to bring triumph.

This disclosure was poisonous, naturally, and it was meant to hurt him, which it accomplished. He called for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. If there was a probe then we heard nothing further about it.

By then it was plain the manager was shedding the support of the people above him.

The frequent {gripes