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Just fifteen minutes following the club issued the announcement of their manager's surprising resignation via a perfunctory five-paragraph statement, the howitzer arrived, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

In an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

This individual he convinced to come to the club when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting in their place. Plus the man he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the severity of his takedown, the astonishing comeback of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the club, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an unending series of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

Currently - and perhaps for a while. Based on comments he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been eager to secure another job. He will view this one as the perfect chance, a present from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he experienced such success and adulation.

Would he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. The club might well make a call to sound out their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the time being.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - however strange as it may be - can be set aside because the biggest shocking development was the harsh manner the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

It was a forceful endeavor at character assassination, a branding of him as untrustful, a source of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the expense of everyone else," wrote Desmond.

For a person who prizes propriety and sets high importance in business being done with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, this was another example of how unusual things have become at Celtic.

The major figure, the club's dominant presence, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the power to make all the major decisions he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any public forum.

He does not attend club AGMs, sending his son, Ross, in his place. He seldom, if ever, gives interviews about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the organization with confidential missives to media organisations, but nothing is heard in public.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to be. And it's exactly what he went against when launching all-out attack on the manager on Monday.

The official line from the club is that Rodgers resigned, but reviewing Desmond's invective, line by line, you have to wonder why he permit it to get such a critical point?

If the manager is guilty of all of the things that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why was the manager not dismissed?

Desmond has charged him of spinning information in public that did not tally with the facts.

He says Rodgers' words "have contributed to a hostile environment around the club and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the management and the directors. Some of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

Such an remarkable allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be preparing as we discuss.

His Ambition Conflicted with the Club's Strategy Again

Looking back to happier days, they were close, the two men. Rodgers lauded Desmond at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to him and, really, to no one other.

This was the figure who drew the criticism when his comeback occurred, after the previous manager.

It was the most controversial hiring, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have described it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Gradually, the manager turned on the persuasion, delivered the victories and the honors, and an uneasy truce with the supporters became a love-in once more.

There was always - consistently - going to be a moment when his ambition clashed with the club's business model, however.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired once more, with added intensity, recently. He spoke openly about the sluggish way Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable waiting for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

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

Despite the organization spent unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well so far, with one since having departed - Rodgers demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in public.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his next news conference he would typically minimize it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like he was playing a risky strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that purportedly came from a insider associated with the organization. It said that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his departure plan.

He didn't want to be present and he was engineering his exit, that was the implication of the story.

Supporters were angered. They now saw him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his board members wouldn't support his vision to achieve success.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was intended to hurt Rodgers, which it did. He called for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. If there was a probe then we heard no more about it.

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

The regular {gripes