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Merely fifteen minutes after the club issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising resignation via a brief short communication, the bombshell landed, from Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

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

The man he convinced to join the team when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. And the figure he again relied on after the previous manager departed to another club in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's critique, the jaw-dropping comeback of the former boss was practically an after-thought.

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after a large part of his latter years was dedicated to an unending circuit 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. Considering comments he has said lately, O'Neill has been eager to get another job. He will view this role as the ultimate opportunity, 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. The club might well make a call to sound out their ex-manager, but O'Neill will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it is - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' development was the brutal way the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

This constituted a forceful attempt at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the expense of others," wrote he.

For a person who values propriety and sets high importance in business being conducted with discretion, if not outright secrecy, here was another example of how abnormal situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the club's dominant presence, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to take all the important decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not attend club annual meetings, dispatching his son, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's reluctant to speak out.

He has been known on an occasion or two to defend the club with confidential messages to news outlets, but no statement is made in public.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to remain. And it's just what he contradicted when launching full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

The official line from the club is that he stepped down, but reviewing Desmond's invective, carefully, one must question why he permit it to get this far down the line?

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of all of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the manager not removed?

He has accused him of spinning things in open forums that were inconsistent with the facts.

He claims his statements "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the club and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the executive team and the board. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and improper."

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

'Rodgers' Aspirations Conflicted with the Club's Strategy Once More'

To return to better days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers lauded Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him every chance. Rodgers respected Dermot and, really, to no one other.

This was Desmond who took the criticism when Rodgers' returned occurred, post-Postecoglou.

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

Desmond had his back. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the wins and the honors, and an fragile truce with the fans turned into a love-in once more.

There was always - consistently - going to be a point when his ambition came in contact with the club's business model, though.

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with added intensity, over the last year. He publicly commented about the slow process the team went about their player acquisitions, the endless delay for targets to be landed, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he stated about the necessity for what he called "flexibility" in the market. Supporters concurred with him.

Even when the organization splurged record amounts of funds in a calendar year on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly another player and the significant Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with Idah already having left - the manager demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in public.

He set a controversy about a internal disunity inside the team and then walked away. Upon questioning about his comments at his next news conference he would usually minimize it and nearly contradict what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was playing a dangerous game.

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly came from a source close to the organization. It said that Rodgers was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was orchestrating his departure plan.

He desired not to be there and he was engineering his way out, that was the implication of the story.

The fans were angered. They then viewed him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his honor because his directors wouldn't support his plans to bring success.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to hurt him, which it accomplished. He called for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

At that point it was clear Rodgers was shedding the support of the individuals in charge.

The frequent {gripes