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Merely a quarter of an hour following the club issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a brief short statement, the bombshell landed, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

In an extensive statement, major shareholder Desmond savaged his former ally.

The man he convinced to join the team when Rangers were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. Plus the man he once more relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of his takedown, the jaw-dropping comeback of Martin O'Neill was practically an after-thought.

Twenty years after his departure from the organization, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an unending series of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

For now - and perhaps for a time. Considering things he has said recently, O'Neill has been eager to secure another job. He will see this role as the perfect opportunity, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he experienced such glory and praise.

Will he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. The club might well make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - as surreal as it is - can be set aside because the most significant 'wow!' moment was the harsh manner the shareholder described Rodgers.

It was a forceful attempt at defamation, a branding of him as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the expense of everyone else," wrote Desmond.

For a person who prizes decorum and sets high importance in dealings being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, here was another example of how unusual situations have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's most powerful figure, moves in the margins. The remote leader, the individual with the power to take all the major decisions he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He never attend club annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to defend the organization with private messages to media organisations, but nothing 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 the manager on that day.

The directive from the club is that he stepped down, but reading Desmond's criticism, carefully, one must question why he permit it to reach such a critical point?

If Rodgers is culpable of all of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's guilty of, 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 claims Rodgers' words "played a part to a hostile environment around the team and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the management and the directors. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

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

'Rodgers' Aspirations Clashed with Celtic's Model Once More'

To return to better days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager praised the shareholder at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to Dermot and, really, to no one other.

This was Desmond who took the heat when his comeback happened, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most controversial hiring, the return of the prodigal son 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.

Desmond had Rodgers' back. Over time, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the victories and the honors, and an uneasy truce with the supporters turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when his goals came in contact with Celtic's business model, though.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened again, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow way the team went about their transfer business, the endless delay for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was believed.

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

Even when the organization splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the £9m Adam Idah and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have cut it to date, with Idah already having left - Rodgers demanded more and more and, often, he expressed this in public.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity within the team and then walked away. Upon questioning about his comments at his subsequent media briefing he would usually minimize it and almost reverse what he said.

Internal issues? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like he was engaging in a risky game.

A few months back there was a report in a publication that purportedly originated from a source close to the organization. It said that the manager was damaging the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was managing his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be there and he was arranging his exit, that was the tone of the article.

The fans were angered. They then viewed him as similar to a martyr who might be removed on his honor because his board members did not back his vision to bring success.

The leak was damaging, naturally, and it was meant to hurt him, which it did. He called for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. If there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

At that point it was clear Rodgers was losing the support of the people above him.

The frequent {gripes