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Just a quarter of an hour after the club issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising resignation via a brief short communication, the bombshell landed, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in obvious anger.

Through an extensive statement, major shareholder Desmond savaged his former ally.

This individual he persuaded to come to the team when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and needed putting in their place. And the figure he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of his takedown, the astonishing return of the former boss was almost an after-thought.

Twenty years after his exit from the club, and after a large part of his recent life was given over to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

For now - and perhaps for a time. Considering comments he has expressed recently, he has been eager to secure a new position. He will view this role as the perfect chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the environment where he enjoyed such glory and praise.

Will he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly reach out to sound out their ex-manager, but O'Neill will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it may be - can be set aside because the biggest 'wow!' moment was the brutal manner the shareholder wrote of Rodgers.

It was a forceful endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," wrote he.

For a person who values propriety and places great store in business being done with discretion, if not complete privacy, here was another example of how unusual situations have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the organization's most powerful figure, moves in the background. The remote leader, 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 does not participate in club annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, his son, instead. He seldom, if ever, does media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

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

This is precisely how he's wanted it to be. And that's just what he went against when going all-out attack on the manager on Monday.

The directive from the team is that he stepped down, but reading Desmond's criticism, line by line, one must question why did he allow it to get this far down the line?

Assuming the manager is culpable of every one of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the manager not dismissed?

He has charged him of spinning information in public that were inconsistent with the facts.

He claims Rodgers' statements "played a part to a hostile environment around the club and fuelled animosity towards individuals of the executive team and the directors. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unwarranted and unacceptable."

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

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

To return to happier times, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers praised the shareholder at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan respected him and, really, to no one other.

It was the figure who took the heat when Rodgers' returned happened, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most controversial hiring, the return of the returning hero for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the difficulty for another club.

Desmond had his back. Over time, Rodgers turned on the charm, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the fans turned into a love-in once more.

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

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired again, with added intensity, over the last year. He publicly commented about the slow process the team conducted their player acquisitions, the endless delay for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the case as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he spoke about the necessity for what he called "agility" in the transfer window. Supporters concurred with him.

Despite the organization splurged unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the £9m another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - none of whom have cut it so far, with Idah already having departed - the manager pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in public.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity inside the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his next media briefing he would usually downplay it and almost contradict what he said.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, all are united, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was playing a risky game.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly came from a insider close to the organization. It said that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was managing his departure plan.

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

Supporters were angered. They then saw him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his honor because his directors wouldn't back his plans to achieve success.

The leak was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

At that point it was plain Rodgers was losing the backing of the individuals in charge.

The frequent {gripes