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Just fifteen minutes after the club issued the announcement of their manager's surprising resignation via a perfunctory short statement, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

Through 551-words, key investor Desmond savaged his old chum.

This individual he persuaded to come to the club when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. And the figure he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of his takedown, the astonishing return of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Two decades after his departure from the club, and after much of his recent life was given over to an unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his past successes at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Based on comments he has expressed lately, he has been eager to secure a new position. He'll view this one as the perfect opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he enjoyed such glory and adulation.

Would he give it up readily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly reach out to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a soothing presence for the time being.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the most significant shocking development was the brutal manner Desmond wrote of the former manager.

It was a forceful attempt at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," wrote Desmond.

For a person who prizes propriety and places great store in business being done with discretion, if not outright secrecy, this was another illustration of how abnormal things have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the organization's most powerful figure, operates in the background. The remote leader, the one with the power to make all the major decisions he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any public forum.

He never attend club annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about the team unless they're glowing in tone. And still, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to support the organization with confidential messages to media organisations, but no statement is heard in the open.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to remain. And it's exactly what he contradicted when launching all-out attack on the manager on Monday.

The official line from the club is that he stepped down, but reviewing his invective, carefully, you have to wonder why he allow it to get such a critical point?

If the manager is culpable 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 removed?

He has accused him of distorting information in public that were inconsistent with the facts.

He says Rodgers' words "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the club and fuelled animosity towards individuals of the management and the board. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unwarranted and unacceptable."

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

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

To return to happier days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded Desmond at every turn, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to him and, really, to no one other.

This was Desmond who took the criticism when his comeback occurred, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most divisive appointment, the return of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have described it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the lurch for Leicester.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the victories and the honors, and an uneasy truce with the fans became a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when his goals came in contact with the club's business model, though.

It happened in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow process Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the case as far as he was believed.

Time and again he spoke about the need for what he called "agility" in the transfer window. Supporters concurred with him.

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have cut it so far, with one since having departed - the manager demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity inside the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his next news conference he would typically downplay it and nearly contradict what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a risky strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that allegedly came from a source associated with the club. It claimed that the manager was damaging Celtic with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his departure plan.

He didn't want to be there and he was arranging his exit, this was the tone of the story.

The fans were angered. They now viewed him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his directors did not support his plans to bring triumph.

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

At that point it was plain Rodgers was shedding the support of the people above him.

The regular {gripes