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Just a quarter of an hour after Celtic released the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising resignation via a brief short statement, the howitzer landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

In 551-words, key investor Dermot Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

The man he persuaded to come to the club when Rangers were gaining ground in that period and required being back in a box. Plus the man he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for another club in the summer of 2023.

Such was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was practically an after-thought.

Two decades after his exit 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 past successes at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a while. Considering comments he has said recently, O'Neill has been keen to get another job. He'll see this one as the perfect chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he enjoyed such glory and adulation.

Would he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well make a call to contact their ex-manager, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the moment.

All-out Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the biggest shocking development was the brutal manner the shareholder wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of untruths, a spreader of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the cost of others," stated he.

For somebody who prizes propriety and sets high importance in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, here was another illustration of how abnormal situations have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's dominant presence, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to take all the major calls he pleases without having the responsibility of justifying them in any public forum.

He never participate in team AGMs, sending his offspring, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to defend the club with confidential messages to news outlets, but no statement is made in the open.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to be. And it's exactly what he contradicted when launching all-out attack on Rodgers on that day.

The official line from the club is that Rodgers stepped down, but reviewing Desmond's criticism, carefully, one must question why he allow it to reach such a critical point?

Assuming the manager is guilty of all of the things that Desmond is alleging he's responsible for, then it's fair to inquire why had been the manager not removed?

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

He claims his words "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the club and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the board. Some of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unwarranted and unacceptable."

What an remarkable allegation, indeed. Legal representatives might be preparing as we discuss.

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

Looking back to better times, they were close, the two men. Rodgers lauded Desmond at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers respected him and, truly, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who drew the heat when his returned occurred, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for a few or, as other supporters would have described it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had his back. Gradually, the manager turned on the charm, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the fans turned into a affectionate relationship again.

There was always - consistently - going to be a moment when his goals clashed with the club's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers spoke openly about the slow process Celtic went about their player acquisitions, the endless waiting for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was too often the situation as far as he was concerned.

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

Even when the organization splurged unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the £9m another player and the £6m further acquisition - all of whom have cut it so far, with one already having left - Rodgers pushed for increased resources and, often, he expressed this in public.

He set a bomb about a internal disunity inside the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent media briefing he would usually downplay it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like he was engaging in a risky strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that allegedly originated from a source associated with the club. It said that the manager was damaging the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be present and he was engineering his way out, this was the implication of the story.

The fans were enraged. They now viewed him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his honor because his directors wouldn't back his vision to bring success.

This disclosure was poisonous, naturally, and it was meant to harm him, which it accomplished. He called for an investigation 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 the manager was losing the backing of the people above him.

The regular {gripes