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Just a quarter of an hour following Celtic issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a brief five-paragraph communication, the howitzer landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent anger.

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

This individual he persuaded to join the club when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and required being back in a box. Plus the figure he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the ferocity of Desmond's critique, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was practically an after-thought.

Two decades after his exit from the club, and after much of his latter years was given over to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his past successes at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

Currently - and perhaps for a while. Based on things he has said recently, O'Neill has been eager to secure a new position. He will see this role as the perfect chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the environment where he experienced such success and adulation.

Would he relinquish it easily? 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 Character Assassination

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it is - can be set aside because the biggest shocking development was the brutal way the shareholder wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," stated he.

For somebody who values propriety and places great store in business being conducted with discretion, if not complete secrecy, here was another illustration of how unusual things have become at the club.

Desmond, the organization's most powerful figure, moves in the background. The remote leader, the individual with the power to make all the major calls he pleases without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He does not participate in team annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's reluctant to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to defend the club with confidential missives to media organisations, but no statement is heard in public.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to be. And it's just what he contradicted when going all-out attack on the manager on Monday.

The directive from the club is that he resigned, but reading Desmond's criticism, line by line, you have to wonder why he permit it to reach this far down the line?

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

He has charged him of distorting things in public that were inconsistent with the facts.

He says his words "played a part to a toxic environment around the team and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the directors. Some of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

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

His Aspirations Clashed with Celtic's Strategy Once More'

To return to happier times, they were close, the two men. The manager lauded Desmond at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan respected Dermot and, really, to no one other.

This was the figure who drew the heat when Rodgers' returned occurred, after the previous manager.

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

Desmond had Rodgers' back. Gradually, the manager employed the persuasion, delivered the victories and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the supporters became a affectionate relationship once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a point when his ambition clashed with Celtic's business model, however.

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened again, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the sluggish process Celtic conducted their transfer business, the interminable delay for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he stated about the need for what he called "flexibility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the £11m one signing, the £9m another player and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have cut it so far, with Idah already having departed - Rodgers demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity inside the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would typically downplay it and nearly reverse what he said.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, all are united, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a report in a publication that purportedly came from a source associated with the organization. It said that the manager was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his departure plan.

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

Supporters were angered. 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 triumph.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was meant to hurt Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we learned no more about it.

By then it was plain the manager was losing the support of the people in charge.

The regular {gripes