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Merely a quarter of an hour after the club issued the announcement of their manager's surprising resignation via a perfunctory short statement, the bombshell arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent fury.

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

The man he convinced to come to the team when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting in their place. And the figure he again relied on after the previous manager left for another club in the summer of 2023.

Such was the ferocity of his critique, the jaw-dropping comeback of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at the team, O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

Currently - and perhaps for a while. Considering comments he has said recently, O'Neill has been eager to get a new position. He'll view this role as the perfect chance, a present from the club's legacy, a return to the environment where he experienced such glory and adulation.

Would he give it up easily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic might well make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but the new appointment will serve as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

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

It was a full-blooded attempt at defamation, a branding of him as untrustful, a source of untruths, a disseminator of misinformation; divisive, misleading and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," wrote Desmond.

For somebody who prizes decorum and sets high importance in dealings being conducted with confidentiality, if not complete secrecy, here was another example of how abnormal things have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's dominant figure, operates in the background. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to make all the major calls he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He does not participate in club AGMs, dispatching his offspring, Ross, in his place. He seldom, if ever, gives interviews about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's slow to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to defend the organization with confidential missives to media organisations, but nothing is heard in the open.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to remain. And it's just what he went against when launching full thermonuclear on Rodgers on that day.

The official line from the team is that he resigned, but reviewing his invective, carefully, you have to wonder why did he permit it to reach this far down the line?

If Rodgers is culpable of every one of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to inquire why was the manager not removed?

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

He claims his statements "played a part to a hostile environment around the team and encouraged hostility towards members of the management and the directors. Some of the criticism directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unjustified and improper."

What an remarkable allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we speak.

'Rodgers' Ambition Conflicted with Celtic's Strategy Once More'

Looking back to happier times, they were tight, the two men. The manager lauded the shareholder at every turn, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

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

It was the most controversial appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for a few or, as some other supporters would have described it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had his back. Gradually, the manager turned on the charm, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the fans became a love-in once more.

There was always - consistently - going to be a moment when Rodgers' goals clashed with the club's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened again, with added intensity, recently. He spoke openly about the sluggish process the team went about their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for targets to be landed, then missed, as was too often the situation as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he spoke about the need for what he termed "agility" in the transfer window. The fans agreed with him.

Despite the club splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a twelve-month period on the £11m one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have cut it to date, with Idah since having departed - the manager pushed for increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in public.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his next news conference he would typically downplay it and nearly contradict what he said.

Internal issues? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like he was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly came from a source close to the organization. It claimed that the manager was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his departure plan.

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

Supporters were enraged. They then viewed him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his honor because his board members did not back his plans to bring success.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was meant to harm him, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. Whether there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

At that point it was plain the manager was shedding the backing of the people in charge.

The frequent {gripes