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Just fifteen minutes following the club issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising resignation via a perfunctory short communication, the howitzer landed, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent fury.

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

The man he persuaded to come to the team when Rangers were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting in their place. And the figure he again relied on after the previous manager left for another club in the recent offseason.

Such was the severity of his critique, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the club, and after much of his recent life was given over to an unending series of appearances and the playing of all his old hits at the team, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a time. Considering comments he has expressed recently, he has been keen to get another job. He'll view this role as the ultimate opportunity, a present from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such success and praise.

Will he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic might well make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the time being.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the biggest shocking development was the harsh way the shareholder wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a forceful attempt at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as untrustful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the expense of everyone else," wrote Desmond.

For somebody who prizes propriety and places great store in dealings being conducted with discretion, if not outright secrecy, here was a further illustration of how unusual things have become at the club.

Desmond, the club's dominant presence, moves in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the authority to take all the major calls he pleases without having the obligation of justifying them in any public forum.

He never attend club AGMs, sending his offspring, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's slow to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to defend the club with private missives to news outlets, but nothing is made in the open.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And that's exactly what he contradicted when going full thermonuclear on the manager on that day.

The official line from the team is that Rodgers stepped down, but reading his invective, line by line, one must question why did he permit it to reach such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is guilty of all of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to inquire why had been the coach not dismissed?

He has accused him of distorting information in public that were inconsistent with reality.

He says his statements "played a part to a toxic environment around the club and fuelled animosity towards members of the management and the board. Some of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and unacceptable."

Such an extraordinary charge, indeed. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we speak.

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

To return to happier days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded Desmond at every turn, thanked him every chance. Brendan deferred to Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

It was the figure who drew the criticism when his returned occurred, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for a few or, as other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' back. Over time, Rodgers employed the persuasion, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the supporters became a love-in once more.

There was always - consistently - going to be a point when his goals clashed with the club's operational approach, though.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with bells on, over the last year. He spoke openly about the sluggish way Celtic went about their player acquisitions, the endless delay for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he stated about the need for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. Supporters concurred with him.

Despite the organization splurged record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have performed well so far, with Idah already having left - the manager demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in public.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity inside the club and then walked away. Upon questioning about his comments at his next media briefing he would typically minimize it and nearly contradict what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like Rodgers was playing a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that allegedly came from a insider associated with the organization. It claimed that the manager was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his departure plan.

He didn't want to be there and he was arranging his way out, that was the implication of the story.

The fans were angered. They now viewed him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his honor because his board members did not support his vision to achieve success.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was intended to harm him, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

At that point it was plain the manager was shedding the backing of the individuals in charge.

The frequent {gripes