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Merely a quarter of an hour following Celtic issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a perfunctory short statement, the howitzer landed, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

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

This individual he persuaded to come to the team when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and required being in their place. Plus the man he once more relied on after the previous manager departed to another club in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of Desmond's takedown, the jaw-dropping return of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an unending circuit of appearances and the playing of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

Currently - and perhaps for a time. Based on things he has said recently, O'Neill has been keen to secure another job. He'll see this role as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he enjoyed such glory and adulation.

Would he relinquish it easily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well make a call to sound out their ex-manager, but O'Neill will serve as a soothing presence for the moment.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

The new manager's return - however strange as it is - can be set aside because the biggest shocking moment was the harsh manner the shareholder described Rodgers.

This constituted a forceful attempt at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the cost of others," wrote he.

For a person who values decorum and places great store in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, this was another example of how abnormal situations have grown at Celtic.

Desmond, the organization's dominant presence, operates in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the authority to make all the major calls he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any public forum.

He never participate in team annual meetings, dispatching his son, his son, in his place. He seldom, if ever, gives interviews about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's slow to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the organization with private messages to news outlets, but nothing is heard in public.

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

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

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

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

He says Rodgers' statements "played a part to a hostile environment around the team and fuelled animosity towards individuals of the management and the board. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and unacceptable."

What an extraordinary charge, indeed. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

His Aspirations Clashed with the Club's Model Once More'

Looking back to happier times, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. The manager praised Desmond at every turn, thanked him every chance. Brendan respected Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

It was the figure who drew the criticism when Rodgers' returned occurred, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most controversial hiring, the reappearance of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other supporters would have put it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had his back. Gradually, Rodgers employed the persuasion, delivered the victories and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the fans turned into a love-in again.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a point when Rodgers' ambition clashed with Celtic's business model, though.

It happened in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with bells on, over the last year. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow process Celtic conducted their transfer business, the endless delay for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he spoke about the need for what he called "flexibility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Despite the organization splurged unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the costly another player and the significant Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with one already having left - the manager demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in openly.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion within the team and then walked away. Upon questioning about his comments at his next media briefing he would typically minimize it and nearly reverse what he said.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, all are united, he'd claim. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a risky strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly came from a insider associated with the organization. It claimed that the manager was harming Celtic with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be there and he was arranging his way out, this was the implication of the article.

The fans were enraged. They now saw him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his board members wouldn't back his vision to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was damaging, of course, and it was meant to harm him, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

By then it was plain Rodgers was losing the backing of the individuals above him.

The frequent {gripes