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Merely a quarter of an hour after the club issued the announcement of their manager's surprising resignation via a brief short statement, the howitzer landed, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

In an extensive statement, key investor Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

The man he persuaded to join the club when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and required being in their place. And the figure he once more turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of his critique, the jaw-dropping comeback of the former boss was almost an after-thought.

Two decades after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his recent life was dedicated to an unending circuit of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

Currently - and maybe for a time. Considering things he has said recently, O'Neill has been eager to get a new position. He will see this role as the ultimate chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

Would he relinquish it readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club could possibly make a call to sound out their ex-manager, but the new appointment will serve as a balm for the time being.

All-out Attempt at Character Assassination

The new manager's return - as surreal as it is - can be set aside because the most significant shocking moment was the harsh manner Desmond described the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a labeling of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," wrote he.

For somebody who values propriety and sets high importance in dealings being conducted with discretion, if not outright secrecy, here was a further illustration of how abnormal situations have grown at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's dominant presence, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to take all the major calls he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any open setting.

He does not attend team annual meetings, sending his son, his son, in his place. He seldom, if ever, does interviews about the team unless they're hagiographic in nature. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

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

It's exactly how he's wanted it to be. And it's just what he went against when launching full thermonuclear on the manager on that day.

The directive from the club is that Rodgers stepped down, but reading Desmond's criticism, line by line, one must question why he permit it to reach this far down the line?

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

Desmond has accused him of spinning information in public that did not tally with the facts.

He says his statements "have contributed to a toxic environment around the club and fuelled animosity towards members of the management and the directors. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

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

His Ambition Conflicted with Celtic's Model Once More'

Looking back to better times, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to him and, really, to no one other.

It was Desmond who took the criticism when his returned occurred, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most divisive appointment, the return of the returning hero for a few or, as some other supporters would have described it, the arrival of the shameless one, who departed in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Over time, the manager employed the persuasion, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the fans turned into a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when his goals clashed with Celtic's business model, though.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers spoke openly about the slow process Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

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

Even when the organization spent unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly another player and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have cut it so far, with one since having left - the manager pushed for more and more and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He set a bomb about a internal disunity within the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent media briefing he would typically downplay it and nearly contradict what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It appeared like Rodgers was playing a dangerous game.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that allegedly originated from a source associated with the club. It said that the manager was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was managing his departure plan.

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

Supporters were enraged. They then viewed him as similar to a martyr who might be removed on his honor because his directors wouldn't support his plans to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was intended to harm him, which it did. He called for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a examination then we heard no more about it.

By then it was clear Rodgers was shedding the support of the people above him.

The frequent {gripes