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Merely fifteen minutes following Celtic released the announcement of their manager's surprising resignation via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the howitzer landed, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

In 551-words, key investor Dermot Desmond savaged his old chum.

This individual he persuaded to join the club when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting in their place. Plus the man he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the recent offseason.

Such was the severity of Desmond's takedown, the astonishing return of the former boss was practically an after-thought.

Two decades after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was dedicated to an continuous series of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

Currently - and perhaps for a time. Based on comments he has said recently, he has been keen to secure another job. He will view this role as the perfect chance, a present from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he experienced such glory and adulation.

Will he give it up easily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well make a call to sound out their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a soothing presence for the time being.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the most significant shocking development was the brutal manner Desmond wrote of the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a branding of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For a person who prizes propriety and sets high importance in business being conducted with discretion, if not outright secrecy, this was another illustration of how abnormal situations have become at Celtic.

The major figure, the club's most powerful figure, operates in the background. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to make all the important calls he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He never participate in club AGMs, dispatching his son, Ross, in his place. He seldom, if ever, does media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to defend the organization with confidential messages to news outlets, but no statement is made in public.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to be. And that's just what he went against when going full thermonuclear on the manager on that day.

The official line from the club is that he resigned, but reading Desmond's invective, line by line, you have to wonder why did he allow it to get this far down the line?

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

Desmond has charged him of spinning information in open forums that were inconsistent with the facts.

He says his words "have contributed to a toxic environment around the club and fuelled hostility towards members of the executive team and the directors. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and unacceptable."

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

His Aspirations Conflicted with Celtic's Strategy Again

Looking back to happier times, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Rodgers respected him and, truly, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who took the criticism when Rodgers' comeback happened, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other supporters would have put it, the arrival of the shameless one, who departed in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had his support. Over time, Rodgers turned on the charm, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the supporters became a love-in once more.

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

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with bells on, recently. He publicly commented about the slow way Celtic went about their transfer business, the interminable delay 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 need for what he called "agility" in the transfer window. Supporters concurred with him.

Despite the club splurged unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the £9m Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it to date, with one since having departed - Rodgers pushed for increased resources and, often, he did it in public.

He set a controversy about a internal disunity within the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his subsequent media briefing he would usually minimize it and almost reverse what he said.

Internal issues? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It looked like he was engaging in a dangerous game.

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a source associated with the club. It said that the manager 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 arranging his exit, that was the tone of the story.

Supporters were angered. They now viewed him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his directors did not back his plans to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was damaging, of course, and it was intended to harm him, which it accomplished. He called for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. If there was a probe then we heard no more about it.

By then it was clear Rodgers was shedding the backing of the individuals in charge.

The regular {gripes