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Just a quarter of an hour following Celtic released the news of their manager's shock resignation via a brief five-paragraph statement, the howitzer landed, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious fury.

Through 551-words, key investor Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

The man he convinced to join the team when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and required being back in a box. And the man he once more relied on after the previous manager left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the severity of Desmond's critique, the astonishing return of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his recent life was given over to an continuous circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his past successes at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and perhaps for a time. Considering comments he has said recently, he has been eager to get a new position. He'll see this role as the ultimate chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he experienced such success and adulation.

Will he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. Celtic could possibly reach out to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's return - however strange as it may be - can be set aside because the biggest shocking development was the harsh manner the shareholder described Rodgers.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," wrote he.

For somebody who prizes decorum and places great store in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, here was another example of how abnormal situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the organization's most powerful presence, operates in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the power to take all the major calls he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

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

There have been instances on an occasion or two to support the club with private messages to media organisations, but nothing is made in public.

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

The official line from the team is that he resigned, but reading Desmond's criticism, line by line, you have to wonder why he allow it to reach such a critical point?

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

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

He says his words "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the club and fuelled hostility towards members of the executive team and the board. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

What an remarkable allegation, that is. Lawyers might be mobilising as we speak.

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

Looking back to happier days, they were close, the two men. Rodgers praised Desmond at every turn, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to him and, truly, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who took the criticism when his returned occurred, after the previous manager.

This marked the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the returning hero for a few or, as some other supporters would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had his back. Over time, the manager turned on the charm, achieved the wins and the honors, and an uneasy truce with the fans turned into a love-in once more.

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

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired once more, with added intensity, recently. He publicly commented about the sluggish process the team went about their transfer business, the interminable waiting for targets to be landed, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

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

Even when the organization splurged unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it to date, with Idah since having left - the manager pushed for increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity inside the club and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would typically downplay it and almost contradict what he stated.

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

A few months back there was a report in a publication that allegedly came from a insider close to the organization. It said that the manager was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was orchestrating his departure plan.

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

The fans were angered. They then saw him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his honor because his board members wouldn't support his vision to achieve triumph.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it did. He called for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. If there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

At that point it was plain the manager was losing the support of the people in charge.

The regular {gripes