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Just a quarter of an hour following the club released the news of their manager's surprising resignation via a perfunctory five-paragraph statement, the howitzer landed, from Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

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

The man he persuaded to join the club when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and required being in their place. And the man he once more relied on after the previous manager departed to another club in the recent offseason.

Such was the severity of his critique, the astonishing comeback of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

Two decades after his exit from the club, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an continuous circuit of appearances and the playing of all his past successes at the team, Martin O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a time. Considering things he has expressed lately, he has been keen to secure a new position. He'll see this role as the perfect chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such success and praise.

Will he give it up readily? It seems unlikely. Celtic could possibly reach out to contact their ex-manager, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the time being.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - as surreal as it is - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' moment was the harsh way the shareholder wrote of Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-interest at the cost of others," stated he.

For somebody who prizes propriety and sets high importance in dealings being done with discretion, if not outright privacy, here was another example of how abnormal situations have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's most powerful figure, operates in the margins. The remote leader, 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, sending his son, Ross, instead. He seldom, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's reluctant to speak out.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the organization with confidential missives to media organisations, but nothing is made in public.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to be. And that's just what he went against when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on that day.

The directive from the club is that he stepped down, but reading his invective, carefully, one must question why did he allow it to reach this far down the line?

If Rodgers is culpable of all of the things that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to ask why had been the coach not dismissed?

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

He says his words "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the team and encouraged hostility towards members of the executive team and the board. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

Such an remarkable charge, that is. Lawyers might be mobilising as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Ambition Clashed with the Club's Strategy Once More'

Looking back to happier days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers respected Dermot and, really, to no one other.

It was the figure who took the criticism when his comeback occurred, after the previous manager.

It was the most controversial appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have described it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Gradually, Rodgers employed the charm, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the supporters turned into a love-in once more.

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

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers spoke openly about the slow way the team conducted their transfer business, the endless waiting for targets to be secured, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

Time and again he spoke about the necessity for what he called "agility" in the market. Supporters concurred with him.

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the expensive Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have performed well to date, with Idah since having departed - Rodgers pushed for increased resources and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He planted a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then walked away. Upon questioning about his comments at his next news conference he would usually downplay it and nearly reverse what he said.

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

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that allegedly originated from a insider associated with the organization. It said that Rodgers was harming the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his departure plan.

He desired not to be there and he was engineering his exit, this was the implication of the story.

Supporters were enraged. They now saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his board members wouldn't support his plans to bring triumph.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was meant to hurt Rodgers, which it did. He called for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we heard no more about it.

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

The frequent {gripes