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Just a quarter of an hour following the club released the news of their manager's surprising resignation via a brief short statement, the howitzer arrived, from Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

Through an extensive statement, key investor Desmond savaged his former ally.

This individual he convinced to join the club when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and required being in their place. And the figure he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of his takedown, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was almost an after-thought.

Two decades after his departure from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an continuous series of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his past successes at the team, Martin O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

Currently - and perhaps for a time. Based on things he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been eager to secure another job. He will view this role as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such success and adulation.

Would he give it up readily? It seems unlikely. Celtic could possibly make a call to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the time being.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - however strange as it is - can be parked because the most significant shocking development was the harsh manner the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

It was a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the expense of others," wrote he.

For somebody who prizes decorum and sets high importance in business being done with confidentiality, if not complete secrecy, this was another example of how abnormal situations have become at Celtic.

The major figure, the organization's most powerful figure, operates in the margins. The remote leader, the individual with the power to make all the major decisions he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not attend club AGMs, dispatching his offspring, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in nature. And even then, he's slow to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the club with confidential missives 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 Rodgers on that day.

The official line from the team is that he resigned, but reading Desmond's invective, line by line, one must question why did he allow it to get such a critical point?

If Rodgers is guilty of all of the accusations that the shareholder is claiming he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why had been the coach not dismissed?

He has charged him of spinning information in open forums that were inconsistent with reality.

He claims his statements "played a part to a hostile environment around the club and fuelled hostility towards members of the management and the board. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

Such an remarkable allegation, indeed. Lawyers might be mobilising as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Ambition Clashed with the Club's Strategy Again

To return to better days, they were close, the two men. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers respected him and, truly, to nobody else.

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

It was the most controversial appointment, the return of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had his support. Over time, Rodgers employed the charm, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the supporters turned into a love-in again.

There was always - always - going to be a point when his ambition clashed with Celtic's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened again, with bells on, recently. He spoke openly about the sluggish way Celtic conducted their transfer business, the endless waiting for targets to be secured, then missed, as was frequently the case as far as he was concerned.

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

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of funds in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have cut it so far, with Idah since having left - Rodgers demanded more and more and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity inside the team and then walked away. When asked about his comments at his subsequent news conference he would typically downplay it and almost contradict what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It appeared like he was playing a risky strategy.

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly originated from a source close to the club. It said that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing 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 enraged. They then saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his board members wouldn't support his plans to achieve triumph.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was meant to harm Rodgers, which it did. He called for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. If there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

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

The regular {gripes