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Merely fifteen minutes following the club released the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the howitzer landed, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent anger.

In an extensive statement, major shareholder Desmond savaged his old chum.

This individual he convinced to join the team when Rangers were gaining ground in that period and needed putting in their place. 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 jaw-dropping comeback of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Two decades after his exit from the organization, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his past successes at the team, Martin O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

Currently - and perhaps for a time. Considering things he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been eager to secure another job. He'll see this role as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the environment where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

Will he give it up readily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well reach out to contact Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the moment.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - however strange as it is - can be set aside because the biggest 'wow!' development was the harsh way the shareholder described the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a labeling of him as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For somebody who values propriety and sets high importance in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, here was a further example of how unusual things have grown at the club.

Desmond, the club's most powerful presence, operates in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the power to take all the major calls he pleases without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He never attend club annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, Ross, in his place. He seldom, if ever, gives media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's slow to speak out.

He has been known on an occasion or two to defend the organization with private messages 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 went against when launching full thermonuclear on Rodgers on that day.

The official line from the team is that Rodgers resigned, but reviewing his criticism, carefully, one must question why he allow it to reach such a critical point?

Assuming the manager is culpable of every one of the things that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to inquire why was the coach not dismissed?

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

He claims Rodgers' words "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the team and encouraged hostility towards members of the executive team and the directors. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

What an extraordinary allegation, indeed. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Model Again

To return to happier days, they were close, the two men. The manager lauded Desmond at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers respected Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

This was Desmond who drew the heat when Rodgers' comeback occurred, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other supporters would have described it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Gradually, the manager turned on the persuasion, achieved the wins and the honors, and an fragile peace with the supporters turned into a love-in again.

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

It happened in his first incarnation and it happened again, with added intensity, over the last year. He publicly commented about the sluggish way Celtic went about their transfer business, the interminable waiting for prospects to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he stated about the necessity for what he termed "flexibility" in the transfer window. The fans agreed with him.

Even when the organization splurged unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the £11m one signing, the £9m Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well to date, with Idah already having departed - Rodgers pushed for more and more and, often, he did it in public.

He set a controversy about a internal disunity within the club and then walked away. Upon questioning about his comments at his next media briefing he would typically downplay it and almost contradict what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, all are united, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that allegedly came from a source close to the club. It claimed that the manager was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his true aim was orchestrating his departure plan.

He didn't want 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 carried out on his honor because his directors did not support his vision to bring triumph.

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

At that point it was plain Rodgers was shedding the backing of the people above him.

The regular {gripes