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Just fifteen minutes after the club issued the announcement of their manager's surprising resignation via a brief short communication, the howitzer landed, courtesy of the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent fury.

In 551-words, key investor Dermot Desmond savaged his former ally.

The man he convinced to join the team when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and required being back in a box. And the figure he once more 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 return of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the club, and after much of his recent life was given over to an unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

Currently - and maybe for a while. Based on things he has expressed recently, he has been keen to secure another job. He'll view this one as the perfect chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he enjoyed such glory and adulation.

Would he relinquish it easily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly reach out to sound out their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the biggest shocking moment was the harsh way the shareholder described Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," wrote he.

For somebody who values propriety and places great store in business being conducted with discretion, if not outright privacy, this was a further illustration of how abnormal things have become at the club.

The major figure, the organization's dominant presence, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the power to make all the major decisions he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any public forum.

He never attend team AGMs, dispatching his offspring, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in tone. And still, he's slow to speak out.

He has been known on an occasion or two to defend the organization with confidential messages to media organisations, but nothing is heard in the open.

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

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

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

He has charged him of spinning information in open forums that were inconsistent with reality.

He claims Rodgers' words "have contributed to a hostile environment around the club and fuelled animosity towards individuals of the management and the board. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

Such an extraordinary charge, that is. Lawyers might be preparing as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Clashed with the Club's Strategy Once More'

Looking back to happier days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him every chance. Rodgers deferred to Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who drew the criticism when Rodgers' comeback occurred, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most controversial appointment, the reappearance 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, Rodgers employed the persuasion, delivered the victories and the honors, and an fragile truce with the supporters turned into a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when Rodgers' ambition clashed with the club's operational approach, though.

It happened in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with bells on, over the last year. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish way Celtic conducted their transfer business, the endless delay for targets to be landed, then not landed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he spoke about the need for what he called "agility" in the transfer window. Supporters agreed with him.

Despite the club splurged record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - all of whom have performed well to date, with one already having departed - the manager demanded increased resources and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity inside the club and then walked away. Upon questioning about his remarks at his next media briefing he would typically minimize it and almost reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like he was engaging in a risky game.

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly came from a insider close to the organization. It claimed that the manager was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be present and he was arranging his exit, this was the tone of the article.

The fans were enraged. They now viewed him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his honor because his directors did not back his plans to bring success.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was intended to harm him, which it accomplished. He called for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be removed. If there was a examination then we heard nothing further about it.

By then it was clear Rodgers was losing the support of the individuals in charge.

The frequent {gripes