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Merely a quarter of an hour following the club issued the announcement of their manager's surprising resignation via a brief short communication, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious fury.

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

The man he persuaded to come to the team when their rivals were gaining ground in that period and needed putting in their place. And the figure he once more turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the summer of 2023.

Such was the ferocity of his takedown, the jaw-dropping comeback of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Two decades after his exit from the club, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an unending circuit of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a time. Based on things he has said lately, he has been eager to get a new position. He will see this one as the perfect opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he experienced such glory and adulation.

Will he relinquish it readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club could possibly reach out to sound out their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

The new manager's return - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' moment was the brutal manner Desmond described Rodgers.

This constituted a forceful attempt at defamation, a labeling of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the expense of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For a person who prizes propriety and places great store in dealings being conducted with discretion, if not complete privacy, here was a further illustration of how abnormal situations have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's dominant presence, operates in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the power to make all the major decisions he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He never participate in club AGMs, sending his son, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in nature. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the club with confidential messages to news outlets, but no statement is made in the open.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to remain. And it's just what he contradicted when going all-out attack on Rodgers on Monday.

The official line from the team is that Rodgers resigned, but reading his invective, carefully, you have to wonder why he permit it to get this far down the line?

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

He has charged him of distorting information in open forums that did not tally with reality.

He claims Rodgers' words "have contributed to a hostile atmosphere around the team and fuelled hostility towards members of the management and the directors. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

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

His Ambition Clashed with the Club's Model Again

Looking back to happier days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him every chance. Brendan deferred to Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who drew the criticism when his returned happened, after the previous manager.

This marked the most controversial appointment, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the lurch for Leicester.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Over time, Rodgers employed the charm, delivered the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the fans turned into a affectionate relationship again.

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

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish process the team went about their transfer business, the endless delay for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

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

Even when the club splurged record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have cut it so far, with Idah since having left - the manager pushed for increased resources and, oftentimes, he did it in openly.

He planted a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would usually minimize it and almost reverse what he said.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, all are united, he'd claim. It looked like Rodgers was playing a risky strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that purportedly came from a insider associated with the organization. It claimed that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his departure plan.

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

The fans were angered. They then viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his directors wouldn't support his plans to achieve success.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was meant to harm him, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a examination then we learned no more about it.

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

The frequent {gripes