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Just a quarter of an hour after Celtic released the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising resignation via a perfunctory short communication, the bombshell arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

Through an extensive statement, key investor Desmond savaged his former ally.

This individual he convinced to join the team when their rivals were gaining ground in that period and required being in their place. And the figure he once more turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for another club in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of Desmond's critique, the jaw-dropping return of Martin O'Neill was practically an after-thought.

Two decades after his departure from the club, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Based on things he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been keen to secure another job. He'll view this role as the perfect opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

Would he give it up easily? It seems unlikely. Celtic could possibly reach out to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the time being.

All-out Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be parked because the most significant 'wow!' moment was the harsh way the shareholder described the former manager.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at character assassination, a branding of him as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For a person who prizes propriety and places great store in business being conducted with discretion, if not outright privacy, here was another illustration of how abnormal situations have grown at the club.

The major figure, the club's dominant presence, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to make all the major calls he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not attend club annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, his son, in his place. He seldom, if ever, gives media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's slow to speak out.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to support the club with private messages to news outlets, but nothing is made in public.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to remain. And it's just what he went against when going full thermonuclear on the manager on that day.

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

Assuming the manager is guilty of every one of the things that the shareholder is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the manager not removed?

He has accused him of spinning information in open forums that were inconsistent with reality.

He claims Rodgers' words "played a part to a toxic environment around the club and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the directors. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unwarranted and unacceptable."

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

His Aspirations Conflicted with the Club's Model Again

Looking back to happier times, they were close, the two men. Rodgers praised the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to him and, truly, to no one other.

This was Desmond who drew the criticism when his returned happened, after the previous manager.

This marked the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as other supporters would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' back. Over time, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the wins and the honors, and an fragile truce with the fans turned into a love-in again.

There was always - consistently - going to be a moment when his goals came in contact with Celtic's business model, however.

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired again, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish way Celtic conducted their transfer business, the endless waiting for prospects to be secured, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he spoke about the necessity for what he termed "agility" in the transfer window. Supporters concurred with him.

Even when the organization splurged record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it to date, with Idah since having left - the manager demanded more and more and, often, he expressed this in public.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity inside the club and then walked away. Upon questioning about his comments at his next news conference he would typically minimize it and almost contradict what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like Rodgers was playing a dangerous game.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that purportedly originated from a insider associated with the organization. It said that the manager was damaging Celtic with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was managing his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be there and he was engineering his way out, that was the tone of the article.

Supporters were enraged. They then saw him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his honor because his directors wouldn't back his vision to achieve success.

The leak was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

By then it was clear Rodgers was losing the backing of the individuals in charge.

The regular {gripes