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Just fifteen minutes following Celtic released the news of their manager's shock resignation via a perfunctory short communication, the howitzer landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

Through an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot Desmond savaged his former ally.

This individual he convinced to come to the team when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and needed putting back in a box. And the figure he once more relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for another club in the recent offseason.

Such was the severity of his takedown, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after a large part of his recent life was dedicated to an unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at the team, O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

Currently - and perhaps for a time. Based on comments he has expressed lately, he has been keen to get another job. He will see this role as the ultimate chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such glory and praise.

Would he relinquish it easily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well reach out to sound out their ex-manager, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the most significant shocking development was the brutal manner the shareholder described Rodgers.

It was a forceful endeavor at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-interest at the expense of others," wrote Desmond.

For somebody who prizes propriety and places great store in business being done with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, here was a further example of how abnormal situations have grown at Celtic.

Desmond, the organization's most powerful presence, operates in the background. The remote leader, the one with the authority to make all the major calls he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He never participate in team AGMs, dispatching his offspring, Ross, in his place. He seldom, if ever, gives interviews about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the club with private missives to news outlets, but no statement is heard in public.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And that's just what he went against when launching full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

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

Assuming the manager is guilty of all of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it's fair to inquire why had been the manager not removed?

He has accused him of distorting information in public that did not tally with reality.

He says Rodgers' words "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the team and fuelled animosity towards members of the management and the directors. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

What an remarkable charge, indeed. Lawyers might be preparing as we discuss.

His Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Strategy Again

Looking back to better times, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager praised the shareholder at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan respected him and, really, to no one other.

It was the figure who drew the heat when Rodgers' returned occurred, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most divisive appointment, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Over time, Rodgers turned on the charm, delivered the victories and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the supporters became a affectionate relationship once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a point when his goals clashed with the club's business model, though.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers spoke openly about the slow process Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable waiting for prospects to be secured, then missed, 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 agreed with him.

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with Idah already having left - the manager pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity within the team and then walked away. Upon questioning about his comments at his next media briefing he would typically minimize it and nearly contradict what he said.

Internal issues? No, no, all are united, he'd claim. It looked like Rodgers was playing a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that allegedly came from a insider close to the organization. It said that Rodgers was harming the team with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his departure plan.

He desired not to be there and he was engineering his way out, that was the implication of the article.

Supporters were enraged. They now saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his honor because his board members did not back his vision to achieve success.

This disclosure was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to hurt Rodgers, which it accomplished. He called for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we learned no more about it.

By then it was plain Rodgers was shedding the support of the people in charge.

The regular {gripes