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Just fifteen minutes after Celtic issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising resignation via a brief five-paragraph communication, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious anger.

In 551-words, major shareholder Dermot Desmond savaged his old chum.

The man he persuaded to join the team when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and needed putting in their place. And the man he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the jaw-dropping 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 given over to an unending series of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at the team, Martin O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

Currently - and perhaps for a time. Based on comments he has expressed recently, he has been eager to get a new position. He will see this role as the perfect opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he experienced such glory and praise.

Would he give it up easily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly reach out to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

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

This constituted a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," stated he.

For a person who values decorum and places great store in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not complete secrecy, here was another illustration of how abnormal things have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the organization's most powerful figure, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to make all the major decisions he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any public forum.

He does not participate in team annual meetings, sending his son, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's reluctant to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the club with confidential missives to media organisations, but no statement is heard in the open.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to remain. And that's exactly what he contradicted when going all-out attack on Rodgers on that day.

The directive from the club is that Rodgers stepped down, but reviewing Desmond's invective, line by line, you have to wonder why he permit it to reach this far down the line?

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of all of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the manager not removed?

Desmond has accused him of distorting things in public that did not tally with reality.

He says Rodgers' words "have contributed to a hostile atmosphere around the club and fuelled hostility towards members of the management and the board. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

Such an extraordinary allegation, indeed. Lawyers might be preparing as we speak.

His Aspirations Conflicted with the Club's Model Again

Looking back to happier days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded Desmond at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan respected Dermot and, really, to no one other.

It was Desmond who drew the criticism when his comeback happened, after the previous manager.

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 shameless one, who departed in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Over time, Rodgers employed the persuasion, achieved the victories and the honors, and an uneasy truce with the fans became a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when his ambition clashed with the club's operational approach, however.

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with added intensity, over the last year. He spoke openly about the slow way Celtic conducted their transfer business, the interminable delay for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he spoke about the need for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. Supporters concurred with him.

Even when the club spent record amounts of money in a calendar year on the £11m Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with one since having left - the manager demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his next media briefing he would typically downplay it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It looked like he was playing a risky game.

Earlier this year there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly originated from a insider associated with the organization. It claimed that the manager was harming Celtic with his open criticisms and that his true aim was managing his exit strategy.

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

Supporters were enraged. They then saw him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his board members did not support his vision to bring success.

The leak was poisonous, of course, and it was meant to hurt Rodgers, which it did. He called for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we heard no more about it.

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

The frequent {gripes