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Just a quarter of an hour after the club issued the news of their manager's surprising resignation via a brief five-paragraph communication, the bombshell arrived, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent fury.

Through 551-words, key investor Dermot Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

This individual he persuaded to join the team when Rangers were gaining ground in that period and required being in their place. And the figure he again relied on after the previous manager departed to another club in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the severity of Desmond's takedown, 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 recent life was dedicated to an continuous series of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a time. Considering comments he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been keen to secure a new position. He will see this role as the perfect opportunity, a present from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he enjoyed such glory and adulation.

Would he give it up easily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly reach out to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a soothing presence for the time being.

All-out Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - as surreal as it is - can be set aside because the most significant 'wow!' development was the brutal manner the shareholder described the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a labeling of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of untruths, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the expense of everyone else," wrote he.

For a person who values decorum and places great store in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, this was another example of how abnormal things have grown at Celtic.

Desmond, the organization's most powerful presence, moves in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the power to make all the important calls he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any public forum.

He does not attend club AGMs, dispatching his son, his son, instead. He seldom, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's slow to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to defend the club with confidential missives to media organisations, but nothing is made in the open.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to remain. And that's just what he went against when going all-out attack on the manager on Monday.

The official line from the team is that Rodgers resigned, but reading his invective, carefully, one must question why he allow it to get this far down the line?

Assuming Rodgers is guilty of all of the things that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it's fair to ask why had been the coach not dismissed?

He has accused him of distorting things in open forums that did not tally with the facts.

He claims Rodgers' statements "have contributed to a toxic environment around the team and fuelled hostility towards members of the executive team and the board. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

What an remarkable allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we discuss.

His Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Model Once More'

To return to better days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Brendan respected Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

It was Desmond who took the heat when Rodgers' comeback happened, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most controversial appointment, the return of the returning hero for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the difficulty for another club.

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

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

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with bells on, recently. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish process the team conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for prospects to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

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

Even when the club splurged unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the £11m one signing, the £9m another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with one since having departed - Rodgers demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in openly.

He set a bomb about a internal disunity within the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent media briefing he would typically downplay it and almost reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It looked like he was playing a risky game.

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a source close to the club. It said that the manager was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

Supporters were angered. They now saw him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his honor because his board members did not back his plans to achieve success.

The leak was poisonous, of course, and it was meant to hurt him, 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.

At that point it was plain Rodgers was shedding the support of the people above him.

The frequent {gripes