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Merely a quarter of an hour following Celtic released the news of their manager's surprising resignation via a brief five-paragraph communication, the bombshell landed, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

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

This individual he convinced to join the club when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and required being back in a box. And the figure he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of Desmond's critique, the jaw-dropping return of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was dedicated to an unending series of appearances and the playing of all his past successes at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a time. Considering things he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been eager to secure a new position. He will see this role as the perfect opportunity, a gift from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the environment where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

Will he relinquish it readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well reach out to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the time being.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the most significant 'wow!' development was the harsh way Desmond described Rodgers.

It was a forceful endeavor at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the expense of others," stated he.

For a person who prizes propriety and places great store in dealings being done with discretion, if not outright secrecy, here was another example of how unusual situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the organization's most powerful figure, operates in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the power to make all the important decisions he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

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

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the club with private messages to news outlets, but no statement is made in public.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to remain. And that's just what he went against when going full thermonuclear on the manager on that day.

The official line from the club is that Rodgers stepped down, but reviewing his invective, carefully, you have to wonder why he allow it to reach such a critical point?

If Rodgers is culpable of every one of the things that Desmond is claiming he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why was the manager not dismissed?

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

He says his words "played a part to a hostile environment around the club and fuelled animosity towards members of the management and the directors. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

Such an extraordinary allegation, indeed. Lawyers might be mobilising as we discuss.

His Ambition Clashed with the Club's Strategy Once More'

Looking back to happier days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. The manager praised Desmond at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan respected him and, really, to no one other.

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

It was the most controversial hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had his back. Gradually, Rodgers employed the charm, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the supporters became a affectionate relationship again.

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

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with bells on, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow way Celtic went about their transfer business, the interminable waiting for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

Time and again he spoke about the need for what he termed "agility" in the transfer window. The fans agreed with him.

Despite the club spent record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - all of whom have performed well to date, with Idah already having left - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity inside the club and then walked away. When asked about his comments at his subsequent media briefing he would typically minimize it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was playing a risky strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly came from a insider associated with the club. It claimed that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was managing his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be there and he was engineering his way out, that was the tone of the article.

Supporters were angered. They now saw him as similar to a martyr who might be removed on his honor because his directors wouldn't back his vision to bring triumph.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to harm him, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be removed. If there was a probe then we heard nothing further about it.

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

The regular {gripes