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Merely fifteen minutes after the club released the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising resignation via a perfunctory five-paragraph statement, the bombshell landed, from Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

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

The man he convinced to join the team when their rivals were gaining ground in that period and needed putting in their place. And the man he again turned to after the previous manager left for another club in the recent offseason.

Such was the ferocity of Desmond's critique, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was practically an after-thought.

Two decades after his exit from the club, and after a large part of his latter years was dedicated to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

Currently - and maybe for a time. Considering comments he has said lately, he has been keen to get another job. He'll see this role as the ultimate opportunity, a present from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he enjoyed such glory and praise.

Will he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club could possibly reach out to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a soothing presence for the time being.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's return - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' development was the brutal way the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

It was a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a perpetrator of untruths, a spreader of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the expense of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For somebody who prizes decorum and sets high importance in dealings being done with discretion, if not outright privacy, here was a further example of how unusual things have grown at Celtic.

The major figure, the club's dominant presence, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the power to make all the major decisions he pleases without having the obligation of justifying them in any public forum.

He does not participate in club AGMs, sending his offspring, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's slow to speak out.

He has been known on an rare moment to defend the club with private messages to media organisations, but no statement is heard in public.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to be. And that's just what he went against when launching full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the team is that Rodgers resigned, but reading his invective, line by line, one must question why he allow it to get this far down the line?

If the manager is culpable of every one of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to ask why was the coach not dismissed?

Desmond has accused him of distorting information in public that did not tally with the facts.

He says Rodgers' statements "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the team and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the management and the board. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

Such an remarkable charge, that is. Lawyers might be preparing as we speak.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Clashed with Celtic's Model Once More'

Looking back to happier times, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded the shareholder at every turn, thanked him every chance. Brendan respected him and, truly, to no one other.

It was the figure who took the criticism when his comeback happened, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most divisive hiring, the return of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as some other supporters would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' back. Gradually, the manager employed the persuasion, delivered the victories and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the supporters turned into a love-in again.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when Rodgers' goals came in contact with Celtic's business model, however.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened again, with added intensity, over the last year. He spoke openly about the sluggish process the team went about their transfer business, the endless delay for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was frequently the case as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he spoke about the necessity for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Despite the club splurged record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well so far, with one already having left - Rodgers demanded more and more and, often, he did it in public.

He set a controversy about a internal disunity inside the club and then walked away. Upon questioning about his comments at his subsequent news conference he would usually minimize it and almost reverse what he said.

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

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that allegedly originated from a source associated with the club. It claimed that Rodgers was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his exit strategy.

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

Supporters were angered. They now saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his honor because his board members did not support his plans to bring success.

This disclosure was damaging, of course, and it was meant to hurt him, which it accomplished. He called for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

By then it was clear Rodgers was losing the backing of the individuals above him.

The regular {gripes