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Merely fifteen minutes after the club released the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising resignation via a perfunctory short statement, the bombshell landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious fury.

In 551-words, major shareholder Dermot Desmond savaged his former ally.

The man he convinced to join the club when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. And the figure he again relied on after the previous manager left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of his critique, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

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 public speaking engagements and the performance of all his past successes at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Based on things he has said recently, he has been eager to get another job. He'll see this one as the ultimate opportunity, a present from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the environment where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Would he relinquish it easily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly reach out to contact Postecoglou, but O'Neill will serve 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 most significant 'wow!' moment was the brutal manner Desmond described the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the expense of others," stated Desmond.

For somebody who values propriety and sets high importance in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, here was a further example of how abnormal situations have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's dominant figure, moves in the background. The remote leader, the individual with the authority to make all the important calls he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not attend club AGMs, dispatching his son, his son, instead. He seldom, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to defend the club with confidential messages to media organisations, but no statement is made in public.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And it's exactly what he contradicted when going full thermonuclear on the manager on Monday.

The directive from the team is that he resigned, but reading his criticism, carefully, one must question why did he permit it to get this far down the line?

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

Desmond has accused him of spinning information in open forums that were inconsistent with reality.

He says Rodgers' words "played a part to a hostile environment around the club and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the management and the board. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

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

His Aspirations Conflicted with Celtic's Strategy Once More'

Looking back to better times, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers praised the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan respected Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

It was the figure who took the criticism when Rodgers' comeback happened, after the previous manager.

It was the most controversial appointment, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for another club.

Desmond had Rodgers' back. Over time, the manager employed the charm, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the supporters became a love-in once more.

There was always - always - going to be a point when his goals came in contact with Celtic's business model, though.

It happened in his first incarnation and it happened again, with added intensity, over the last year. He spoke openly about the sluggish way the team conducted their transfer business, the interminable waiting for prospects to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the case as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he stated about the necessity for what he termed "agility" in the market. The fans agreed with him.

Even when the club splurged unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have performed well so far, with Idah since having departed - Rodgers pushed for increased resources and, often, he did it in openly.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the club and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his next media briefing he would usually downplay it and nearly reverse what he stated.

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

Earlier this year there was a report in a publication that purportedly came from a insider close to the organization. It said that the manager was harming Celtic with his open criticisms 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 implication of the article.

Supporters were enraged. They now viewed him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his honor because his directors did not back his plans to bring triumph.

The leak was damaging, naturally, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

By then it was plain the manager was shedding the backing of the people in charge.

The frequent {gripes