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Merely fifteen minutes after Celtic released the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a brief short communication, the howitzer landed, from Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

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

The man he persuaded to join the club when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. Plus the man he again turned to after the previous manager left for another club in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's 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 given over to an continuous circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

Currently - and perhaps for a time. Considering comments he has said lately, O'Neill has been eager to secure a new position. He'll see this one as the perfect chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such success and adulation.

Would he relinquish it readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club could possibly reach out to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will serve as a soothing presence for the time being.

All-out Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the most significant 'wow!' moment was the harsh manner Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

It was a forceful endeavor at character assassination, a branding of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the expense of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For somebody who values propriety and sets high importance in dealings being done with discretion, if not complete secrecy, this was a further illustration of how abnormal things have grown at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's most powerful figure, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to make all the major decisions he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any public forum.

He never attend team AGMs, dispatching his offspring, Ross, instead. He seldom, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's slow to speak out.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to defend the organization with confidential messages to news outlets, but nothing is made in public.

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

The directive from the club is that Rodgers resigned, but reviewing Desmond's invective, carefully, you have to wonder why did he permit it to get such a critical point?

If Rodgers is guilty of every one of the things that Desmond is claiming he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why had been the manager not removed?

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

He claims his statements "played a part to a hostile environment around the team and fuelled hostility towards members of the management and the board. Some of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

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

His Ambition Conflicted with the Club's Model Once More'

To return to better days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

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

It was the most divisive hiring, the return of the returning hero for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have described it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had his back. Over time, the manager employed the persuasion, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the fans became a love-in again.

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

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with bells on, recently. Rodgers spoke openly about the slow process the team went about their player acquisitions, the interminable waiting for prospects to be secured, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he stated about the need for what he termed "agility" in the transfer window. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the club splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the £9m Adam Idah and the £6m further acquisition - all of whom have cut it to date, with Idah already having left - Rodgers demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He set a bomb about a internal disunity inside the club and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would usually minimize it and nearly contradict what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like Rodgers was playing a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that purportedly came from a insider associated with the organization. It claimed that Rodgers was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He desired not to be there and he was arranging his exit, this was the tone of the story.

The fans were enraged. They then saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his honor because his directors did not support his plans to achieve success.

This disclosure was damaging, of course, and it was intended to hurt 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 no more about it.

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

The regular {gripes