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Just a quarter of an hour following the club released the news of their manager's surprising resignation via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the bombshell arrived, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

Through an extensive statement, major shareholder Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

This individual he convinced to come to the team when Rangers were gaining ground in that period and needed putting back in a box. And the man he again turned to after the previous manager departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the ferocity of his takedown, the astonishing comeback of the former boss was almost an after-thought.

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after much of his recent life was dedicated to an unending circuit of appearances and the playing of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

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

Will he give it up easily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly reach out to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will serve as a soothing presence for the time being.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

The new manager's return - however strange as it may be - can be set aside because the most significant shocking moment was the harsh manner Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the cost of others," wrote he.

For a person who prizes propriety and sets high importance in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, this was another illustration of how abnormal situations have grown at Celtic.

The major figure, the organization's dominant figure, operates in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the authority to take all the important decisions he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

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

He has been known on an rare moment to support the club with confidential missives to news outlets, but nothing is made in the open.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to be. And that's exactly what he contradicted when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on that day.

The official line from the team is that he stepped down, but reading his criticism, carefully, you have to wonder why did he permit it to get such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of all of the things that Desmond is claiming he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the manager not dismissed?

He has accused him of spinning information in public that were inconsistent with the facts.

He claims Rodgers' words "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the club and encouraged hostility towards members of the executive team and the board. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

Such an extraordinary charge, that is. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

His Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Model Once More'

Looking back to better times, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded the shareholder at every turn, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers respected Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

It was Desmond who drew the heat when Rodgers' returned occurred, after the previous manager.

This marked the most divisive hiring, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other supporters would have described it, the return of the shameless one, who left them in the lurch for Leicester.

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

There was always - always - going to be a moment when his goals came in contact with the club's operational approach, though.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it transpired once more, with added intensity, recently. He spoke openly about the slow way the team conducted their player acquisitions, the endless waiting for targets to be landed, then missed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

Time and again he spoke about the need for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. Supporters concurred with him.

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the £11m one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have cut it to date, with one already having left - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion within the team and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his next media briefing he would typically minimize it and nearly contradict what he said.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like he was playing a risky strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly came from a insider close to the club. It claimed that the manager was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his departure plan.

He desired not to be present and he was engineering his exit, that was the implication of the article.

The fans were angered. They then saw him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his directors did not back his plans to bring success.

This disclosure was poisonous, naturally, and it was meant to harm him, which it did. He called for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a examination then we learned no more about it.

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

The regular {gripes