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Merely a quarter of an hour following Celtic released the announcement of their manager's surprising resignation via a perfunctory short communication, the howitzer arrived, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

Through 551-words, major shareholder Dermot Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

This individual he convinced to join the club when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and required being in their place. Plus the figure he again turned to after the previous manager departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the ferocity of his takedown, the jaw-dropping comeback of the former boss was practically an after-thought.

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

Currently - and maybe for a while. Based on things he has said recently, O'Neill has been keen to get another job. He will see this role as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he experienced such success and adulation.

Would he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well make a call to sound out their ex-manager, but the new appointment will serve as a soothing presence for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' moment was the harsh manner the shareholder wrote of Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded attempt at defamation, a branding of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of misinformation; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the cost of others," wrote Desmond.

For a person who prizes propriety and places great store in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not complete privacy, this was a further example of how abnormal things have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's dominant figure, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to make all the important calls he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any public forum.

He never attend team annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, does 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 defend the club with private missives to news outlets, but no statement is made in public.

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

The official line from the club is that he stepped down, but reviewing Desmond's invective, carefully, one must question why he allow it to reach such a critical point?

If Rodgers is guilty of all of the accusations that the shareholder is claiming he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to inquire why was the manager not dismissed?

Desmond has charged him of distorting information in open forums that did not tally with reality.

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

What an extraordinary allegation, indeed. Legal representatives might be preparing as we discuss.

His Aspirations Conflicted with Celtic's Strategy Again

Looking back to happier times, they were close, the two men. The manager lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers respected Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who took the criticism when Rodgers' 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 Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Over time, Rodgers employed the persuasion, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the fans turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

There was always - consistently - going to be a point when Rodgers' ambition came in contact with Celtic's operational approach, though.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with added intensity, over the last year. He publicly commented about the slow way Celtic went about their transfer business, the interminable delay for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was believed.

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

Despite the organization splurged unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have performed well so far, with one since having left - the manager demanded more and more and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity within the club and then walked away. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would usually minimize it and almost contradict what he said.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, all are united, he'd claim. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a source close to the club. It claimed that Rodgers was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

The fans were enraged. They then viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his honor because his board members wouldn't back his vision to bring triumph.

The leak was damaging, naturally, and it was meant to harm him, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

At that point it was clear Rodgers was shedding the backing of the individuals above him.

The regular {gripes