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Just a quarter of an hour after Celtic issued the announcement of their manager's shock resignation via a brief five-paragraph communication, the howitzer landed, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

Through 551-words, key investor Dermot Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

The man he convinced to join the team when Rangers were gaining ground in that period and needed putting back in a box. And the figure he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of his critique, the jaw-dropping return of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the organization, 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 Celtic, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and perhaps for a time. Considering comments he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been keen to get another job. He will see this role 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? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly make a call to contact Postecoglou, but O'Neill will serve as a soothing presence for the moment.

All-out Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - however strange as it may be - can be set aside because the most significant shocking moment was the harsh way Desmond described Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a labeling of him as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the expense of others," stated he.

For a person who values decorum and places great store in business being done with discretion, if not complete secrecy, here was a further example of how unusual things have become at the club.

The major figure, the organization's dominant figure, operates in the background. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to take all the important calls he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any public forum.

He never attend club annual meetings, dispatching his son, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the organization with private messages to news outlets, but nothing is made in public.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to remain. And it's exactly what he contradicted when going all-out attack on the manager on Monday.

The directive from the team is that he stepped down, but reading Desmond's invective, carefully, one must question why did he permit it to reach such a critical point?

If Rodgers is guilty of all of the accusations that Desmond is claiming he's guilty of, then it's fair to ask why had been the manager not dismissed?

He has charged him of spinning things in public that did not tally with reality.

He says Rodgers' statements "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the team and encouraged animosity towards members of the executive team and the board. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

What an remarkable charge, that is. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

His Ambition Clashed with the Club's Model Again

Looking back to better times, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager praised Desmond at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers respected Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who drew the heat when his returned happened, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have described it, the return of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Over time, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the wins and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the fans became a affectionate relationship again.

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

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with bells on, over the last year. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow way Celtic went about their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for targets to be landed, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he stated about the necessity for what he called "flexibility" in the market. The fans agreed with him.

Despite the club splurged record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well to date, with Idah since having left - Rodgers pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He planted a controversy about a lack of cohesion within the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his subsequent media briefing he would usually minimize it and almost contradict what he said.

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

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly came from a source close to the organization. It said that the manager was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his departure plan.

He didn't want to be present and he was engineering his exit, this was the implication of the story.

Supporters were enraged. They then saw him as similar to a martyr who might be removed on his honor because his directors wouldn't support his plans to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it accomplished. He called for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we heard nothing further about it.

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

The regular {gripes