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Just fifteen minutes following the club released the news of their manager's surprising resignation via a perfunctory short communication, the howitzer landed, from Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

In an extensive statement, key investor Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

The man he convinced to come to the club when Rangers were gaining ground in 2016 and required being back in a box. Plus the figure he once more relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of his critique, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Two decades after his exit from the club, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his past successes at the team, Martin O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

Currently - and maybe for a while. Considering things he has said lately, he has been keen to get a new position. He will see this one as the perfect opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such success and adulation.

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

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be set aside because the most significant shocking development was the brutal manner Desmond wrote of the former manager.

It was a forceful endeavor at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a source of untruths, a spreader of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the cost of others," wrote he.

For a person who prizes decorum and sets high importance in business being conducted with discretion, if not outright privacy, here was a further example of how abnormal situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the club's dominant figure, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to take all the major calls he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He does not participate in club AGMs, dispatching his son, his son, instead. He seldom, if ever, gives interviews about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's reluctant to communicate.

There have been instances on an rare moment to defend the club with private missives to media organisations, but no statement is heard in public.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to remain. And that's just what he went against when launching full thermonuclear on Rodgers on that day.

The official line from the club is that he resigned, but reviewing Desmond's criticism, carefully, one must question why did he allow it to reach this far down the line?

Assuming Rodgers is guilty of every one of the things that Desmond is claiming he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to inquire why had been the coach not dismissed?

Desmond has charged him of spinning information in open forums that were inconsistent with reality.

He claims his statements "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the team and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the management and the board. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

What an extraordinary allegation, indeed. Lawyers might be preparing as we speak.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Conflicted with the Club's Model Once More'

Looking back to better times, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded the shareholder at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers respected Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

This was the figure who drew the heat when his comeback happened, after the previous manager.

This marked the most controversial hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

The shareholder had his back. Gradually, the manager employed the charm, achieved the victories and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the supporters became a love-in once more.

There was always - consistently - going to be a point when his ambition clashed with Celtic's business model, though.

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened again, with bells on, over the last year. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish process Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for targets to be landed, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he stated about the necessity for what he called "agility" in the market. Supporters agreed with him.

Even when the club splurged unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the £11m one signing, the costly another player and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have performed well so far, with Idah since having left - Rodgers pushed for increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity inside the team and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his next media briefing he would usually minimize it and almost contradict what he said.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a risky game.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a insider close to the club. It said that Rodgers was damaging the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was managing his departure plan.

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

Supporters were enraged. They now saw him as similar to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his directors did not support his plans to bring triumph.

This disclosure was damaging, of course, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we heard no more about it.

At that point it was plain Rodgers was shedding the backing of the individuals above him.

The regular {gripes