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Just fifteen minutes after the club released the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising resignation via a brief five-paragraph communication, the bombshell arrived, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in obvious anger.

In 551-words, major shareholder Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

The man he persuaded to join the team when their rivals were gaining ground in that period and required being back in a box. Plus the figure he once more turned to after the previous manager departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the severity of Desmond's critique, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the club, and after much of his recent life was given over to an unending series of appearances and the performance of all his past successes at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a time. Based on things he has said lately, O'Neill has been eager to get another job. He will view this one as the perfect chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such success and adulation.

Will he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well make a call to sound out their ex-manager, but the new appointment will serve as a balm for the moment.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - however strange as it is - can be set aside because the most significant shocking moment was the harsh way Desmond described Rodgers.

It was a forceful attempt at character assassination, a branding of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the cost of others," wrote he.

For somebody who prizes propriety and sets high importance in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not complete privacy, here was a further example of how abnormal things have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the organization's most powerful figure, operates in the margins. The remote leader, the individual with the power to make all the important decisions he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He does not attend club annual meetings, sending his son, his son, in his place. He seldom, if ever, does media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's reluctant to communicate.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the organization with confidential messages to news outlets, but nothing is made in the open.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And it's exactly what he contradicted when going all-out attack on the manager on Monday.

The directive from the team is that he stepped down, but reviewing Desmond's invective, line by line, you have to wonder why did he allow it to get such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of all of the accusations that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to ask why had been the manager not dismissed?

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

He claims Rodgers' statements "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the club and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the management and the board. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

What an extraordinary charge, indeed. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we speak.

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

To return to happier times, they were close, the two men. The manager praised the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Rodgers deferred to him and, really, to nobody else.

This was Desmond who took the criticism when Rodgers' returned occurred, post-Postecoglou.

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

Desmond had his support. Over time, the manager employed the charm, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the supporters became a love-in again.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a moment when Rodgers' ambition clashed with the club's business model, however.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with bells on, over the last year. Rodgers spoke openly about the slow way the team went about their transfer business, the endless waiting for targets to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

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

Despite the club spent record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the £11m one signing, the costly another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with one already having departed - the manager demanded increased resources and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He set a controversy about a internal disunity within the club and then walked away. When asked about his comments at his next news conference he would usually downplay it and nearly contradict what he said.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It looked like he was playing a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a newspaper that allegedly came from a insider close to the organization. It claimed that Rodgers was harming 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 engineering his way out, this was the implication of the article.

Supporters were enraged. They now saw him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his board members did not back his plans to achieve success.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to hurt Rodgers, which it did. He demanded 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 individuals in charge.

The regular {gripes