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Just a quarter of an hour after Celtic issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising resignation via a perfunctory short statement, the howitzer arrived, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

In 551-words, key investor Dermot Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

This individual he convinced to join the team when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and required being in their place. Plus the man he again turned to after the previous manager departed to another club in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of his critique, the jaw-dropping comeback of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an continuous series of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his past successes at the team, Martin O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and perhaps for a time. Considering comments he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been keen to secure a new position. He will view this one as the perfect chance, a present from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he experienced such success and praise.

Would he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. Celtic could possibly reach out to contact their ex-manager, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the moment.

All-out Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - however strange as it is - can be set aside because the most significant shocking moment was the brutal manner the shareholder wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the expense of others," stated Desmond.

For a person who values decorum and sets high importance in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, here was a further illustration of how unusual things have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's dominant figure, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to take all the important decisions he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He never participate in team AGMs, dispatching his son, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're glowing in tone. And even then, he's slow to speak out.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the club with confidential missives to news outlets, but nothing is heard in the open.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to be. And it's just what he contradicted when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

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

Assuming Rodgers is guilty of all of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to ask why was the manager not removed?

Desmond has charged him of distorting things in public that did not tally with reality.

He claims his statements "have contributed to a hostile environment around the club and encouraged hostility towards members of the management and the board. Some of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been completely unwarranted and improper."

What an extraordinary allegation, indeed. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we speak.

'Rodgers' Ambition Conflicted with Celtic's Strategy Again

To return to better times, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Brendan respected him and, truly, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who drew the heat when his returned occurred, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most controversial appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had his support. Gradually, the manager turned on the charm, delivered the victories and the honors, and an fragile peace with the supporters turned into a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a moment when Rodgers' goals clashed with the club's business model, however.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with added intensity, over the last year. He publicly commented about the sluggish process the team went about their transfer business, the interminable delay for targets to be landed, then not landed, as was frequently the case as far as he was believed.

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

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of funds in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the £9m Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it to date, with one already having left - the manager pushed for more and more and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his next news conference he would typically minimize it and almost contradict what he said.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It looked like he was playing a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a report in a publication that allegedly originated from a source close to the club. It said that Rodgers was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his exit strategy.

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

Supporters were enraged. They then saw him as similar to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his board members did not support his vision to achieve success.

The leak was poisonous, of course, and it was meant to harm him, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. If there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

By then it was clear Rodgers was shedding the backing of the people in charge.

The frequent {gripes