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Merely fifteen minutes after Celtic released the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a brief short communication, the bombshell landed, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

In an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot Desmond savaged his old chum.

The man he persuaded to join the team when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. Plus the man he once more turned to after the previous manager left for another club in the summer of 2023.

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

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an continuous circuit of appearances and the playing of all his old hits at the team, Martin O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a while. Considering comments he has said lately, he has been keen to secure another job. He will see this role as the perfect chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Would he give it up easily? It seems unlikely. Celtic could possibly make a call to contact Postecoglou, but O'Neill will serve as a balm for the moment.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's return - however strange as it may be - can be set aside because the most significant shocking development was the brutal manner the shareholder described Rodgers.

This constituted a forceful attempt at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," stated Desmond.

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

The major figure, the organization's dominant figure, operates in the background. The remote leader, the one with the power to take all the major decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

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

He has been known on an occasion or two to defend the club with confidential missives to news outlets, but nothing is made in the open.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to remain. And it's just what he contradicted when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on that day.

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

Assuming the manager is culpable of all of the things that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to inquire why had been the coach not removed?

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

He says his words "have contributed to a hostile atmosphere around the club and encouraged hostility towards members of the executive team and the board. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unjustified and improper."

What an extraordinary allegation, that is. Lawyers might be mobilising as we speak.

His Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Strategy Once More'

Looking back to better times, they were close, the two men. The manager lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him every chance. Brendan respected Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who took the criticism when his returned occurred, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other supporters would have described it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the lurch for another club.

Desmond had his support. Gradually, the manager employed the charm, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an fragile peace with the fans became a affectionate relationship once more.

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

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened again, with bells on, over the last year. Rodgers publicly commented about the sluggish way Celtic went about their player acquisitions, the endless waiting for targets to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

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

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the £11m one signing, the costly another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - none of whom have cut it to date, with Idah since having left - Rodgers pushed for increased resources and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He planted a controversy about a lack of cohesion within the team and then walked away. When asked about his comments at his next media briefing he would typically minimize it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a risky game.

Earlier this year there was a report in a publication that allegedly originated from a source close to the club. It said that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

The fans were enraged. They now saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his board members did not support his vision to achieve success.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was intended to hurt Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be removed. If there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

At that point it was clear Rodgers was losing the backing of the people in charge.

The regular {gripes