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Just fifteen minutes after the club released the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a brief short statement, the howitzer landed, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent fury.

Through 551-words, major shareholder Dermot Desmond savaged his former ally.

The man he persuaded to come to the club when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and needed putting back in a box. And the figure he once more relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for another club in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of his takedown, the astonishing return of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

Two decades after his exit from the organization, and after much of his recent life was given over to an continuous series of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

Currently - and perhaps for a while. Considering comments he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been keen to secure a new position. He will view this role as the perfect chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the environment where he experienced such glory and praise.

Will he relinquish it easily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic might well reach out to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the moment.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' moment was the brutal manner Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

It was a forceful endeavor at defamation, a labeling of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of untruths, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the expense of others," stated Desmond.

For a person who values decorum and places great store in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, this was another example of how unusual situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the organization's most powerful presence, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to make all the important decisions he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not attend team annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, Ross, instead. He seldom, if ever, gives interviews about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's slow to speak out.

He has been known on an rare moment to support the organization with confidential missives to news outlets, but no statement is made in public.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to be. And that's just what he went against when launching all-out attack on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the club is that he resigned, but reviewing Desmond's criticism, carefully, one must question why did he allow it to reach this far down the line?

Assuming the manager is culpable of all of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to inquire why was the manager not removed?

He has accused him of spinning information in open forums that did not tally with reality.

He says his words "played a part to a toxic environment around the team and fuelled animosity towards individuals of the executive team and the board. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unwarranted and improper."

What an remarkable charge, indeed. Lawyers 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. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Brendan respected him and, really, to no one other.

This was the figure who drew the criticism when Rodgers' comeback occurred, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most divisive appointment, the return of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Gradually, the manager employed the charm, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the fans became a love-in once more.

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

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with bells on, over the last year. He publicly commented about the sluggish process the team went about their player acquisitions, the interminable waiting for targets to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was concerned.

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

Even when the club splurged record amounts of funds in a calendar year on the £11m one signing, the costly another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well to date, with one already having left - Rodgers pushed for increased resources and, often, he expressed this in public.

He planted a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his next media briefing he would typically downplay it and nearly contradict what he said.

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

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly originated from a insider associated with the club. It said that Rodgers was harming the team with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

Supporters were angered. They then viewed him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his board members wouldn't back his plans to achieve success.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was intended to harm him, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we heard nothing further about it.

By then it was plain Rodgers was losing the backing of the individuals above him.

The frequent {gripes