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Merely a quarter of an hour following Celtic issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising resignation via a brief five-paragraph statement, the bombshell landed, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

In an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

This individual he persuaded to come to the team when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and needed putting in their place. And the man he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of his critique, the jaw-dropping comeback of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Two decades after his departure from the organization, and after a large part of his recent life was dedicated to an continuous circuit of appearances and the performance of all his past successes at the team, Martin O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a while. Considering things he has expressed recently, he has been eager to secure a new position. He'll view this role as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he enjoyed such glory and adulation.

Will he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well make a call to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will serve as a soothing presence for the moment.

All-out Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's return - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' development was the harsh way Desmond wrote of the former manager.

It was a forceful attempt at character assassination, a labeling of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," stated he.

For somebody who prizes propriety and sets high importance in business being done with discretion, if not outright secrecy, this was a further illustration of how unusual situations have grown at the club.

The major figure, the organization's most powerful presence, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to take all the important calls he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He does not participate in club annual meetings, sending his offspring, his son, instead. He seldom, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the organization 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 went against when going full thermonuclear on the manager on Monday.

The directive from the club is that he resigned, but reviewing Desmond's criticism, carefully, one must question why did he permit it to get this far down the line?

If Rodgers is culpable of all of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it's fair to ask why was the manager not dismissed?

He has charged him of spinning things in open forums that were inconsistent with the facts.

He claims his statements "played a part to a toxic environment around the club and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the management and the board. A portion of the abuse aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

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

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

To return to happier days, they were close, the two men. Rodgers lauded Desmond at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

It was the figure who took the criticism when his returned occurred, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most controversial hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other supporters would have described it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the difficulty for Leicester.

The shareholder had his back. Over time, the manager turned on the charm, achieved the wins and the honors, and an fragile peace with the fans became a affectionate relationship once more.

There was always - consistently - going to be a moment when his goals came in contact with the club's business model, though.

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired again, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow process Celtic went about their player acquisitions, the endless delay for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

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

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have performed well so far, with one already having departed - the manager demanded more and more and, often, he expressed this in public.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity inside the club and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would usually downplay it and nearly contradict what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like Rodgers was playing a risky game.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that purportedly came from a source close to the organization. It claimed that the manager was damaging the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was managing his departure plan.

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

The fans were angered. They now saw him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his honor because his board members wouldn't support his plans to bring success.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was intended to harm him, which it did. He called for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be removed. If there was a probe then we heard nothing further about it.

By then it was clear the manager was losing the support of the people above him.

The regular {gripes