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Just fifteen minutes following the club released the news of their manager's surprising resignation via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the howitzer landed, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious fury.

Through an extensive statement, key investor Desmond savaged his former ally.

The man he convinced to come to the team when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting in their place. And the figure he once more turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of his takedown, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was practically an after-thought.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after much of his latter years was given over to an unending circuit of appearances and the performance of all his past successes at Celtic, O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a while. Based on comments he has expressed lately, he has been keen to secure a new position. He'll see this one as the ultimate opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he experienced such success and praise.

Will he give it up easily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly reach out to contact their ex-manager, but O'Neill will serve as a balm for the moment.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's reappearance - as surreal as it is - can be parked because the biggest shocking development was the harsh manner Desmond wrote of the former manager.

It was a forceful endeavor at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the expense of others," wrote he.

For somebody who values propriety and places great store in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not complete secrecy, this was another example of how abnormal things have grown at Celtic.

The major figure, the organization's dominant presence, operates in the background. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to take all the major decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He never attend club AGMs, dispatching his son, Ross, instead. He seldom, if ever, does media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's reluctant to speak out.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the organization with private messages to media organisations, but nothing is heard in the open.

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

The directive from the club is that Rodgers resigned, but reviewing Desmond's invective, carefully, you have to wonder why he allow it to reach this far down the line?

Assuming Rodgers is guilty of all of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it's fair to inquire why was the coach not dismissed?

Desmond has accused him of spinning things in open forums that did not tally with the facts.

He says his words "played a part to a toxic environment around the team and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the management and the directors. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

Such an remarkable allegation, indeed. Legal representatives might be preparing as we discuss.

His Aspirations Clashed with the Club's Model Again

To return to better times, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers praised the shareholder at every turn, thanked him every chance. Brendan deferred to him and, truly, to no one other.

This was the figure who drew the criticism when Rodgers' returned occurred, after the previous manager.

It was the most controversial appointment, the reappearance 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 lurch for another club.

Desmond had his support. Over time, the manager employed the charm, achieved the wins and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the fans became a affectionate relationship again.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a point when his ambition clashed with Celtic's operational approach, though.

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired once more, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the sluggish way Celtic went about their transfer business, the interminable delay for targets to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

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

Despite the organization splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the £9m another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with one already having departed - Rodgers pushed for increased resources and, often, he did it in public.

He set a bomb about a internal disunity within the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his next media briefing he would typically minimize it and nearly contradict what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like he was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a report in a publication that purportedly originated 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 didn't want to be there and he was engineering his exit, this was the implication of the article.

The fans were enraged. They now viewed him as similar to a martyr who might be carried out on his honor because his board members wouldn't back his plans to bring success.

This disclosure was poisonous, naturally, and it was meant to hurt Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. If there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

At that point it was plain Rodgers was losing the backing of the individuals above him.

The regular {gripes