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Just a quarter of an hour after the club released the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a brief five-paragraph statement, the bombshell arrived, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

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

This individual he convinced to join the team when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and required being back in a box. And the man he again relied on after the previous manager left for another club in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the severity of Desmond's critique, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was almost an after-thought.

Two decades after his departure from the club, and after a large part of his latter years was dedicated to an continuous series of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a time. Based on things he has said lately, he has been keen to secure a new position. He will see this one as the perfect chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

Will he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly make a call to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will serve as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the biggest shocking moment was the brutal way Desmond described Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded attempt at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For a person who prizes decorum and sets high importance in business being conducted with discretion, if not complete privacy, here was another example of how abnormal things have grown at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's dominant figure, operates in the background. The remote leader, the one with the authority to take all the major decisions he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He does not attend club AGMs, dispatching his son, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the club with confidential messages to media organisations, but nothing is made in the open.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to be. And it's exactly what he contradicted when launching all-out attack on the manager on that day.

The official line from the team is that he stepped down, but reading his invective, line by line, one must question why did he permit it to get such a critical point?

Assuming the manager is culpable of all of the accusations that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it's fair to ask why was the coach 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 team and fuelled hostility towards members of the management and the board. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

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

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

To return to happier days, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers praised the shareholder at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

This was Desmond who drew the heat when Rodgers' returned occurred, after the previous manager.

This marked the most controversial appointment, the return of the returning hero for a few or, as other supporters would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Over time, Rodgers turned on the charm, achieved the victories and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the supporters became a love-in again.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a point when his goals clashed with Celtic's operational approach, however.

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired again, with bells on, recently. He publicly commented about the slow process the team conducted their transfer business, the endless waiting for prospects to be secured, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he stated about the necessity for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. The fans agreed with him.

Even when the club spent record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the £11m one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - all of whom have performed well to date, with Idah since having departed - the manager pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his next news conference he would usually minimize it and almost contradict what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, all are united, he'd claim. It looked like he was playing a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that allegedly came from a source close to the club. It said that the manager was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his departure plan.

He desired not to be present and he was engineering his exit, that was the implication of the story.

Supporters were enraged. They then viewed him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his directors did not support his vision to bring triumph.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was meant to harm him, which it accomplished. He called for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we heard no more about it.

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

The frequent {gripes