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Just a quarter of an hour following the club released the announcement of their manager's surprising resignation via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the bombshell landed, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent anger.

Through an extensive statement, key investor Desmond savaged his former ally.

This individual he convinced to come to the team when their rivals were gaining ground in that period and needed putting back in a box. And the figure he once more turned to after the previous manager left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the ferocity of Desmond's critique, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after a large part of his recent life was dedicated to an unending circuit of appearances and the playing of all his past successes at the team, Martin O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a time. Considering things he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been eager to get a new position. He'll see this role as the ultimate opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he experienced such success and adulation.

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

'Full-blooded Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the most significant shocking moment was the harsh way Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

It was a forceful endeavor at defamation, a labeling of him as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the cost of others," stated he.

For a person who values propriety and places great store in dealings being done with discretion, if not complete secrecy, here was another example of how abnormal situations have grown at Celtic.

Desmond, the organization's dominant figure, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to take all the important calls he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He never attend team AGMs, sending his offspring, his son, in his place. He seldom, if ever, gives media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to support the club with confidential messages to news outlets, but no statement is heard in the open.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to remain. And that's exactly what he went against when launching full thermonuclear on the manager on Monday.

The directive from the team is that he resigned, but reviewing his invective, line by line, you have to wonder why did he permit it to get this far down the line?

Assuming the manager is culpable of all of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to inquire why had been the manager not dismissed?

Desmond has accused him of distorting things in open forums that were inconsistent with the facts.

He says his words "played a part to a toxic environment around the team and fuelled animosity towards members of the executive team and the directors. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been completely unwarranted and unacceptable."

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

His Ambition Clashed with the Club's Model Again

Looking back to happier days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager praised the shareholder at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to him and, truly, to nobody else.

This was the figure who drew the heat when his comeback happened, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most controversial hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as other supporters would have described it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' back. Gradually, Rodgers employed the persuasion, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the fans became a affectionate relationship again.

There was always - consistently - going to be a moment when his ambition came in contact with the club's business model, though.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened again, with bells on, over the last year. He spoke openly about the slow process Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable waiting for targets to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

Time and again he stated about the necessity for what he called "agility" in the market. The fans agreed with him.

Despite the organization splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the £11m one signing, the £9m another player and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well to date, with Idah already having departed - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a controversy about a lack of cohesion within the club and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his next news conference he would usually minimize it and nearly reverse what he stated.

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

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a insider close to the organization. It said that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be there and he was engineering his exit, that was the tone of the story.

The fans were angered. They then saw him as similar to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his board members did not back his vision to bring triumph.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was meant to hurt Rodgers, which it accomplished. He called for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. If there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

By then it was plain the manager was losing the backing of the individuals in charge.

The frequent {gripes