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Just fifteen minutes following the club released the news of their manager's surprising resignation via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the bombshell arrived, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in obvious fury.

Through an extensive statement, key investor Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

The man he persuaded to join the team when Rangers were gaining ground in that period and needed putting in their place. Plus the man he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the severity of his takedown, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after a large part of his recent life was given over to an continuous series of appearances and the playing of all his past successes at the team, Martin O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a time. Based on things he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been eager to secure a new position. He will view this one as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he experienced such glory and praise.

Would he give it up easily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly reach out to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will serve as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the most significant shocking moment was the harsh way the shareholder described Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a spreader of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," wrote Desmond.

For somebody who prizes propriety and sets high importance in business being conducted with discretion, if not outright secrecy, this was a further example of how abnormal things have become at Celtic.

The major figure, the club's dominant presence, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the power to take all the important calls he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any public forum.

He never 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 speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the organization with confidential missives to news outlets, but nothing is made in public.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to remain. And that's exactly what he went against when launching full thermonuclear on Rodgers on that day.

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

If the manager is culpable of every one of the accusations that Desmond is claiming he's responsible for, then it's fair to ask why had been the coach not removed?

Desmond has accused him of distorting information in open forums that did not tally with the facts.

He claims his words "played a part to a toxic environment around the club and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the management and the directors. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unwarranted and improper."

Such an extraordinary allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Strategy Once More'

Looking back to happier times, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

It was the figure who took the heat when Rodgers' returned happened, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most divisive appointment, the return of the returning hero for a few or, as other Celtic fans would have described it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Over time, the manager turned on the charm, delivered the wins and the honors, and an fragile truce with the fans became a affectionate relationship once more.

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

This occurred in his initial tenure and it transpired again, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish process the team conducted their player acquisitions, the endless waiting for targets to be landed, then missed, as was frequently the case as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he spoke about the need for what he called "flexibility" in the transfer window. The fans agreed with him.

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have cut it so far, with one already having left - Rodgers pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity within the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would typically downplay it and almost reverse what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, all are united, he'd claim. It appeared like Rodgers was playing a risky game.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly came from a source close to the club. It said that Rodgers 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, that was the tone of the article.

Supporters were enraged. They then viewed him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his honor because his directors wouldn't support his plans to bring success.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was meant to harm him, which it did. He called for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we heard no more about it.

At that point it was plain the manager was shedding the backing of the individuals above him.

The regular {gripes