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Just a quarter of an hour after the club released the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising resignation via a brief five-paragraph statement, the bombshell arrived, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent anger.

Through 551-words, major shareholder Dermot Desmond savaged his old chum.

This individual he convinced to come to the club when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and needed putting back in a box. And the man he once more turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for another club in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's critique, the jaw-dropping comeback of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

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

Currently - and perhaps for a while. Based on things he has expressed recently, he has been keen to get a new position. He'll see this one as the ultimate opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such glory and adulation.

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

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - however strange as it may be - can be set aside because the most significant shocking moment was the brutal way Desmond described the former manager.

It was a forceful attempt at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of untruths, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-interest at the expense of others," stated Desmond.

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 unusual situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the organization's most powerful figure, operates in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the power to take all the important calls he pleases without having the obligation of justifying them in any open setting.

He never participate in team annual meetings, dispatching his son, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's slow to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to defend the club with private messages to news outlets, but nothing is made in the open.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And that's just what he contradicted when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the team is that Rodgers resigned, but reading his criticism, line by line, one must question why did he permit it to reach such a critical point?

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

He has charged him of spinning things in public that were inconsistent with the facts.

He says Rodgers' statements "played a part to a toxic environment around the team and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the directors. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

What an remarkable allegation, indeed. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we speak.

'Rodgers' Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Strategy Again

Looking back to happier times, they were close, the two men. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at every turn, thanked him every chance. Rodgers respected him and, really, to no one other.

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

This marked the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as other supporters would have described it, the return of the shameless one, who left them in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had his back. Gradually, the manager employed the persuasion, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the supporters turned into a affectionate relationship again.

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

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened again, with bells on, over the last year. He publicly commented about the sluggish way Celtic went about their transfer business, the interminable delay for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he spoke about the necessity for what he called "agility" in the market. The fans agreed with him.

Despite the club splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the £9m Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well to date, with one already having departed - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, often, he did it in public.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity within the club and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his next news conference he would typically minimize it and almost reverse what he said.

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

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that allegedly came from a source close to the club. It claimed that the manager was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his departure plan.

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

Supporters were angered. They now viewed him as similar to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his directors wouldn't back his plans to achieve triumph.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was meant to hurt him, which it accomplished. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. Whether there was a examination then we learned no more about it.

By then it was clear the manager was shedding the support of the individuals above him.

The frequent {gripes