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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 Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent fury.

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

The man he convinced to join the team when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and required being in their place. And the man he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the astonishing comeback of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the club, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a while. Considering comments he has expressed recently, he has been keen to secure a new position. He'll see this role as the perfect opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he enjoyed such glory and praise.

Will he give it up easily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly make a call to sound out their ex-manager, but O'Neill will serve as a balm for the moment.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the most significant shocking development was the brutal way the shareholder described the former manager.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a branding of him as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," wrote Desmond.

For a person who values decorum and sets high importance in business being done with discretion, if not complete privacy, here was another illustration of how abnormal situations have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the organization's most powerful figure, operates in the margins. The remote leader, the individual with the power to make all the major decisions he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He never attend club annual meetings, sending his son, his son, in his place. He seldom, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in nature. And still, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to defend the club with private messages to news outlets, but no statement is heard in the open.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to remain. And it's just what he contradicted when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

The official line from the club is that he stepped down, but reading Desmond's criticism, carefully, one must question why did he permit it to reach such a critical point?

If the manager is guilty of every one of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it's fair to inquire why was the manager not dismissed?

Desmond has charged him of spinning things in public that were inconsistent with reality.

He claims his words "have contributed to a hostile environment around the club and encouraged animosity towards members of the management and the board. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

What an remarkable charge, indeed. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

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

To return to better days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded Desmond at every turn, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to him and, truly, to no one other.

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

This marked the most controversial appointment, the return of the prodigal son for a few or, as other supporters would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who left them in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Over time, the manager employed the persuasion, delivered the wins and the honors, and an uneasy truce with the supporters turned into a love-in again.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a point when Rodgers' goals came in contact with Celtic's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened again, with bells on, recently. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish process the team went about their player acquisitions, the endless waiting for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was frequently the case as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he stated about the need for what he termed "agility" in the transfer window. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the club spent record amounts of money in a calendar year on the expensive Arne Engels, the £9m Adam Idah and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have cut it so far, with Idah already having departed - the manager pushed for increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would typically downplay it and nearly reverse what he said.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, all are united, he'd say. It appeared like he was engaging in a risky game.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly came from a insider associated with the organization. It said that Rodgers was harming the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was orchestrating his departure plan.

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

The fans were enraged. They now saw him as similar to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his directors did not support his plans to bring success.

The leak was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it did. He called for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

At that point it was clear Rodgers was shedding the backing of the people above him.

The frequent {gripes