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Just a quarter of an hour after the club released the announcement of their manager's surprising resignation via a brief short communication, the bombshell arrived, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent fury.

Through an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot Desmond savaged his former ally.

The man he convinced to join the club when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. And the figure he again turned to after the previous manager left for another club in the summer of 2023.

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

Two decades after his exit from the organization, and after much of his recent life was dedicated to an unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Based on comments he has expressed lately, he has been keen to get a new position. He will view this role as the ultimate chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Will he relinquish it easily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic might well make a call to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will serve as a balm for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the biggest 'wow!' development was the harsh way the shareholder described the former manager.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," wrote he.

For somebody who values propriety and sets high importance in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not complete privacy, here was a further illustration of how unusual situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the club's dominant presence, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the power to take all the major decisions he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He does not attend team annual meetings, sending his offspring, Ross, in his place. He seldom, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in nature. And still, he's slow to speak out.

He has been known on an rare moment to defend the organization with confidential messages to media organisations, but nothing is made in public.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to remain. And that's exactly what he contradicted when launching full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the team is that he resigned, but reviewing Desmond's invective, carefully, you have to wonder why he allow it to reach such a critical point?

If Rodgers is guilty of every one of the things that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to ask why was the manager not removed?

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

He says his statements "have contributed to a hostile atmosphere around the team and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the management and the directors. A portion of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and improper."

Such an remarkable allegation, indeed. Lawyers might be preparing as we speak.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Conflicted with Celtic's Model Once More'

To return to happier times, they were tight, the two men. The manager praised Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers respected him and, truly, to nobody else.

This was the figure who took the criticism when his comeback happened, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most controversial appointment, the return of the returning hero for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Over time, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the fans became a affectionate relationship again.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a moment when Rodgers' ambition came in contact with the club's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened again, with bells on, recently. He publicly commented about the slow way the team conducted their transfer business, the interminable waiting for targets to be secured, then missed, as was too often the situation as far as he was concerned.

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

Despite the club splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly another player and the £6m further acquisition - all of whom have cut it to date, with one since having left - the manager pushed for increased resources and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his next media briefing he would typically downplay it and nearly reverse what he said.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, all are united, he'd claim. It appeared like Rodgers was playing a dangerous game.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that allegedly originated from a insider close to the organization. It claimed that Rodgers was harming Celtic with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his departure plan.

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

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 back his plans to bring success.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was meant to harm him, which it accomplished. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. Whether there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

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

The frequent {gripes