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Just fifteen minutes following the club released the announcement of their manager's surprising resignation via a brief five-paragraph statement, the bombshell landed, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

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

The man he convinced to join the club when Rangers were gaining ground in 2016 and required being in their place. Plus the man he once more turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for another club in the summer of 2023.

Such was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the jaw-dropping return of Martin O'Neill was practically an after-thought.

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after a large part of his recent life was dedicated to an continuous circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

Currently - and maybe for a while. Based on things he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been eager to get another job. He'll view this role as the perfect chance, a present from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the place where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

Will he relinquish it readily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic might well reach out to contact Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a soothing presence for the time being.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the most significant 'wow!' moment was the harsh way the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the expense of others," stated Desmond.

For somebody who prizes decorum and sets high importance in business being conducted with discretion, if not complete secrecy, this was a further illustration of how unusual situations have grown at the club.

The major figure, the club's dominant figure, operates in the margins. The remote leader, the individual with the power to take all the major decisions he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He never attend team annual meetings, sending his offspring, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to speak out.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to defend the club with confidential missives to media organisations, but nothing is made in public.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to remain. And it's exactly what he contradicted when launching all-out attack on the manager on Monday.

The official line from the team is that Rodgers stepped down, but reviewing his invective, line by line, you have to wonder why he allow it to reach this far down the line?

Assuming the manager is guilty of every one of the things that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why had been the manager not removed?

Desmond has accused him of distorting information in open forums that were inconsistent with reality.

He says Rodgers' words "have contributed to a toxic environment around the club and encouraged animosity towards members of the executive team and the board. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

What an extraordinary charge, that is. Lawyers might be mobilising as we speak.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Conflicted with the Club's Model Again

To return to happier times, they were close, the two men. Rodgers lauded Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him every chance. Brendan respected Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

This was Desmond who drew the heat when his comeback happened, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other supporters would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had his back. Gradually, the manager turned on the charm, delivered the wins and the honors, and an fragile truce with the fans became a love-in again.

There was always - consistently - going to be a point when his goals clashed with the club's business model, however.

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened again, with bells on, over the last year. He publicly commented about the slow process the team conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for prospects 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 need for what he termed "agility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the organization spent unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the £11m one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have performed well to date, with Idah already having departed - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he did it in openly.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his subsequent media briefing he would typically minimize it and almost reverse what he said.

Internal issues? Not at all, 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 allegedly originated from a source associated with the organization. It said that Rodgers was damaging the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his departure plan.

He didn't want to be present and he was arranging his way out, that was the tone of the story.

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

This disclosure was damaging, of course, and it was meant to hurt Rodgers, which it accomplished. 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.

At that point it was plain Rodgers was losing the backing of the people in charge.

The regular {gripes