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Just a quarter of an hour after Celtic released the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the howitzer landed, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious anger.

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

The man he convinced to join the team when their rivals were gaining ground in that period and required being back in a box. And the figure he again turned to after the previous manager left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of his takedown, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was almost an after-thought.

Two decades after his departure from the club, and after much of his recent life was given over to an continuous circuit of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a time. Based on comments he has said recently, he has been keen to secure another job. He'll see this one as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he enjoyed such glory and adulation.

Will he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly reach out to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the biggest shocking development was the brutal way Desmond wrote of the former manager.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at character assassination, a labeling of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the expense of everyone else," wrote he.

For somebody who prizes decorum and sets high importance in dealings being done with discretion, if not complete secrecy, this was a further example of how abnormal situations have become at the club.

Desmond, the club's most powerful presence, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to make all the important calls he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He never participate in club AGMs, sending his offspring, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about the team unless they're glowing in tone. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the club with private messages to news outlets, but no statement is made in the open.

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

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

Assuming the manager is guilty of every one of the accusations 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 things in open forums that were inconsistent with reality.

He claims his words "have contributed to a hostile environment around the club and fuelled animosity towards individuals of the management and the directors. A portion of the abuse aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unjustified and improper."

What an remarkable charge, that is. Legal representatives might be preparing as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Conflicted with the Club's Strategy Again

Looking back to better times, they were close, the two men. Rodgers praised the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers respected him and, really, to nobody else.

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

It was the most divisive appointment, 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 departed in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had his back. Over time, the manager turned on the persuasion, delivered the wins and the honors, and an fragile truce with the supporters turned into a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when his goals clashed with Celtic's business model, however.

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired once more, with added intensity, over the last year. He spoke openly about the slow process Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

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

Even when the organization spent record amounts of money in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the £9m Adam Idah and the £6m further acquisition - all of whom have cut it to date, with one since having departed - the manager pushed for more and more and, often, he expressed this in public.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his subsequent news conference he would usually minimize it and nearly contradict what he said.

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 newspaper that purportedly came from a insider close to the organization. It claimed that Rodgers was harming the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his exit strategy.

He desired not to be there and he was arranging his exit, this was the implication of the story.

Supporters were enraged. They then viewed him as similar to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his board members did not back his plans to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be removed. If there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

At that point it was clear Rodgers was losing the support of the individuals above him.

The frequent {gripes