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Just a quarter of an hour after Celtic released the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a perfunctory short statement, the howitzer landed, from Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

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

The man he convinced to come to the team when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and needed putting in their place. And the man he once more relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the recent offseason.

So intense was the severity of Desmond's critique, the astonishing comeback of the former boss 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 playing of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a time. Considering things he has expressed recently, he has been eager to secure a new position. He'll view this one as the ultimate opportunity, a present from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he experienced such success and praise.

Will he relinquish it easily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well reach out to contact their ex-manager, but O'Neill will serve as a soothing presence for the moment.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' moment was the harsh manner the shareholder described the former manager.

This constituted a forceful attempt at character assassination, a branding of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; divisive, misleading and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," wrote he.

For a person who values propriety and places great store in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, here was another example of how abnormal situations have grown at Celtic.

The major figure, the organization's most powerful figure, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to take all the major decisions he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He does not attend team AGMs, sending his son, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's slow to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the club with confidential missives to news outlets, but nothing is made in the open.

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

The official line from the club is that Rodgers stepped down, but reading Desmond's criticism, carefully, one must question why he permit it to reach this far down the line?

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

Desmond has accused him of distorting information in public that were inconsistent with reality.

He claims Rodgers' statements "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the club and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the board. Some of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

What an extraordinary allegation, that is. Lawyers might be mobilising as we speak.

His Aspirations Clashed with Celtic's Strategy Once More'

To return to better times, they were close, the two men. Rodgers praised Desmond at every turn, thanked him every chance. Brendan deferred to Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

This was Desmond who drew the heat when Rodgers' returned happened, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most divisive appointment, the reappearance 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 his back. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the charm, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an fragile peace with the supporters became a love-in again.

There was always - always - going to be a moment when his ambition came in contact with the club's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired once more, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers publicly commented about the sluggish way Celtic conducted their transfer business, the endless delay for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

Time and again he stated about the need for what he termed "agility" in the market. Supporters agreed with him.

Despite the club spent unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the costly another player and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have cut it to date, with one since having departed - the manager pushed for increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his subsequent media briefing he would usually minimize it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like Rodgers was playing a risky strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that purportedly came from a insider close to the organization. It said that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his departure plan.

He desired not to be present and he was arranging his exit, this was the implication of the article.

The fans were enraged. They now viewed him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his directors did not back his plans to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was poisonous, naturally, and it was meant to hurt Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be removed. If there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

At that point it was plain Rodgers was losing the support of the people in charge.

The frequent {gripes