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Just fifteen minutes after Celtic released the announcement of their manager's shock resignation via a brief short communication, the bombshell arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

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

The man he convinced to join the team when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and needed putting back in a box. And the figure he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

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

Twenty years after his departure from the organization, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at the team, Martin O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

Currently - and perhaps for a time. Considering comments he has said recently, he has been eager to secure a new position. He will see this one as the perfect opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he experienced such glory and praise.

Will he give it up easily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well reach out to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will serve as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' moment was the brutal way the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

It was a forceful attempt at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a source of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For somebody who values propriety and places great store in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, here was a further example of how abnormal things have grown at the club.

The major figure, the organization's most powerful figure, operates in the background. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to take all the important decisions he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He never attend club AGMs, sending his offspring, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's slow to speak out.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to support the club with private messages to media organisations, but no statement is heard in the open.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to be. And that's exactly what he went against when going all-out attack on the manager on that day.

The directive from the team is that he resigned, but reading Desmond's invective, carefully, one must question why he allow it to get this far down the line?

If the manager is guilty of every one of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why had been the manager not dismissed?

Desmond has accused him of spinning information in public that were inconsistent with reality.

He claims Rodgers' words "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the club and encouraged hostility towards members of the executive team and the board. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unwarranted and unacceptable."

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

'Rodgers' Ambition Conflicted with the Club's Model Once More'

To return to better days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers respected Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

This was Desmond who took the criticism when his returned occurred, after the previous manager.

This marked the most controversial hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have described it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the lurch for another club.

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Gradually, the manager employed the charm, delivered the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the supporters became a affectionate relationship once more.

There was always - always - going to be a point when Rodgers' goals came in contact with Celtic's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with added intensity, recently. He spoke openly about the sluggish process the team went about their transfer business, the endless waiting for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

Time and again he spoke about the necessity for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the club spent record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the £11m one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with Idah since having left - the manager demanded more and more and, often, he expressed this in public.

He set a bomb about a internal disunity within the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his next news conference he would typically minimize it and nearly contradict what he said.

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

Earlier this year there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly came from a insider close to the club. It said that the manager was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his exit strategy.

He desired not to be present and he was engineering his exit, this was the implication of the story.

Supporters were enraged. They then saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his honor because his board members did not back his vision to achieve success.

This disclosure was poisonous, naturally, and it was meant to harm Rodgers, which it did. He called for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a examination then we heard nothing further about it.

By then it was plain the manager was shedding the backing of the people above him.

The regular {gripes