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Merely a quarter of an hour following Celtic released the news of their manager's surprising resignation via a brief short communication, the howitzer landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

Through 551-words, major shareholder Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

The man he persuaded to join the club when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and required being in their place. Plus the figure he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

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

For now - and perhaps for a while. Based on things he has said lately, he has been keen to secure a new position. He will see this one as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Would he give it up readily? It seems unlikely. The club might well reach out to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

All-out Attempt at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be set aside because the biggest shocking development was the brutal manner Desmond wrote of the former manager.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a labeling of him as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the expense of others," stated he.

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

The major figure, the club's dominant presence, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to take all the major calls he pleases without having the responsibility of explaining them in any public forum.

He never attend team annual meetings, sending his offspring, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to support the club with private messages to news outlets, but nothing is made in the open.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to remain. And it's just what he contradicted when going all-out attack on the manager on that day.

The directive from the team is that he resigned, but reviewing his invective, line by line, one must question why he allow it to reach such a critical point?

If Rodgers is guilty 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 removed?

He has accused him of distorting information in public that did not tally with reality.

He claims Rodgers' words "have contributed to a hostile environment around the team and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the management and the directors. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

Such an extraordinary allegation, indeed. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

His Aspirations Clashed with the Club's Model Once More'

To return to happier times, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. The manager praised the shareholder at every turn, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan respected him and, really, to nobody else.

This was Desmond who drew the criticism when Rodgers' returned happened, after the previous manager.

It was the most controversial appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had his support. Gradually, the manager employed the charm, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an fragile peace with the fans turned into a love-in once more.

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

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired once more, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish way the team went about their player acquisitions, the endless delay for targets to be secured, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he spoke about the necessity for what he called "flexibility" in the market. The fans agreed with him.

Despite the club splurged record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have performed well to date, with Idah already having departed - the manager demanded more and more and, often, he expressed this in public.

He set a controversy about a internal disunity within the club and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent media briefing he would typically minimize it and almost contradict what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It looked like he was playing a risky game.

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a source associated with the organization. It claimed that the manager was harming Celtic 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 way out, that was the tone of the article.

The fans were angered. They now viewed him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his honor because his directors wouldn't back his plans to achieve triumph.

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 dismissed. If there was a probe then we heard nothing further about it.

At that point it was clear the manager was losing the support of the people above him.

The frequent {gripes