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Merely a quarter of an hour after Celtic issued the news of their manager's surprising resignation via a brief short statement, the howitzer arrived, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent anger.

In an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot Desmond savaged his old chum.

This individual he convinced to join the team when their rivals were gaining ground in that period and required being back in a box. Plus the man he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for another club in the recent offseason.

So intense was the severity of Desmond's takedown, the astonishing return of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after much of his recent life was given over to an unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at the team, Martin O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and perhaps for a while. Considering comments he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been keen to get a new position. He'll view this role as the perfect opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such glory and praise.

Will he relinquish it readily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic might well reach out to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the most significant shocking development was the harsh way the shareholder described the former manager.

It was a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of misinformation; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the cost of others," wrote Desmond.

For somebody who values propriety and sets high importance in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not complete secrecy, here was another illustration of how abnormal things have grown at Celtic.

The major figure, the organization's most powerful presence, operates in the background. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to make all the important calls he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any open setting.

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

He has been known on an rare moment to defend the club with private missives to news outlets, but nothing is made in the open.

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

The official line from the team is that he stepped down, but reviewing Desmond's invective, carefully, one must question why he permit it to reach this far down the line?

If the manager is culpable of all of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it's fair to inquire why had been the manager not dismissed?

Desmond has charged him of distorting information in public that were inconsistent with the facts.

He claims Rodgers' statements "have contributed to a toxic environment around the team and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the board. Some of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

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

'Rodgers' Aspirations Clashed with the Club's Model Once More'

Looking back to better times, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager praised the shareholder at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers respected Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

This was the figure who took the criticism when his comeback occurred, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most divisive appointment, the return of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

The shareholder had his back. Gradually, the manager employed the persuasion, delivered the victories and the trophies, and an fragile peace with the supporters turned into a affectionate relationship again.

There was always - consistently - going to be a moment when Rodgers' goals clashed with Celtic's business model, though.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened again, with bells on, recently. He publicly commented about the slow process Celtic went about their transfer business, the interminable delay for prospects to be secured, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he stated about the necessity for what he called "flexibility" in the market. Supporters agreed with him.

Even when the organization splurged record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the costly another player and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well so far, with one already having left - Rodgers 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 next media briefing he would usually minimize it and almost reverse what he said.

Internal issues? Not at all, all are united, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a risky strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly originated from a insider associated with the organization. It said that the manager was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his departure plan.

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

The fans were enraged. They now viewed him as similar to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his directors wouldn't support his plans to achieve success.

This disclosure was poisonous, naturally, and it was meant to hurt Rodgers, which it accomplished. He called for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

At that point it was plain the manager was shedding the support of the people above him.

The frequent {gripes