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Just fifteen minutes following the club issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising resignation via a brief short communication, the howitzer landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious anger.

Through 551-words, major shareholder Dermot Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

This individual he persuaded to join the team when Rangers were gaining ground in that period and required being in their place. And the man he again turned to after the previous manager left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's critique, the astonishing comeback of the former boss was almost an after-thought.

Two decades after his exit from the club, and after much of his recent life was dedicated to an unending circuit of appearances and the playing of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a while. Based on comments he has expressed recently, he has been keen to secure another job. He will view this one as the ultimate opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he experienced such success and adulation.

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

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - as surreal as it is - can be parked because the most significant shocking development was the brutal manner the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a branding of him as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-interest at the cost of others," wrote he.

For a person who prizes propriety and sets high importance in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, here was a further illustration of how unusual things have grown at Celtic.

The major figure, the club's dominant presence, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the power to make all the important calls he pleases without having the responsibility of justifying them in any public forum.

He never attend club annual meetings, sending his offspring, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about Celtic unless they're glowing in tone. And even then, he's reluctant to speak out.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to support the organization with private messages to media organisations, but no statement is heard in public.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to remain. And that's just what he went against when going all-out attack on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the club is that Rodgers resigned, but reading Desmond's criticism, carefully, you have to wonder why he permit it to get this far down the line?

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

He has charged him of distorting information in public that did not tally with the facts.

He says Rodgers' words "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the club and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the management and the board. A portion of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

Such an remarkable charge, that is. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we speak.

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

Looking back to better times, they were tight, the two men. The manager lauded Desmond at every turn, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Rodgers respected him and, truly, to no one other.

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

This marked the most divisive appointment, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have described it, the arrival of the shameless one, who departed in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the supporters turned into a love-in once more.

There was always - consistently - going to be a point when his goals came in contact with Celtic's business model, however.

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired once more, with bells on, over the last year. Rodgers spoke openly about the slow way Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the endless waiting for prospects to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

Time and again he stated about the necessity for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. Supporters concurred with him.

Despite the club splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a twelve-month period on the £11m one signing, the £9m another player and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well to date, with Idah since having left - the manager pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in openly.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity inside the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his subsequent news conference he would typically minimize it and nearly contradict what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It appeared like Rodgers was playing a risky strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a source close to the club. It claimed that Rodgers was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

The fans were angered. They now saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his honor because his board members wouldn't support his vision to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it accomplished. He called for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we heard nothing further about it.

By then it was plain Rodgers was shedding the backing of the individuals above him.

The frequent {gripes