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Merely fifteen minutes following Celtic issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a brief five-paragraph communication, the bombshell arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent fury.

In an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

The man he persuaded to come to the club when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and required being in their place. Plus the man he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the severity of his critique, the astonishing comeback of the former boss was practically an after-thought.

Twenty years after his departure from the organization, and after a large part of his recent life was dedicated to an continuous circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Based on comments he has expressed recently, he has been keen to get a new position. He'll view this one as the perfect chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he enjoyed such glory and adulation.

Will he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well reach out to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will serve as a balm for the moment.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

The new manager's return - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the biggest shocking moment was the brutal manner the shareholder wrote of Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the expense of everyone else," stated he.

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

The major figure, the club's most powerful figure, operates in the margins. The remote leader, the individual with the power to take all the important decisions he pleases without having the obligation of justifying them in any open setting.

He does not participate in team annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the club with confidential missives to news outlets, but no statement is heard in public.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And that's just 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 Desmond's criticism, carefully, one must question why he allow it to get this far down the line?

If Rodgers is guilty of all of the accusations that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why was the manager not removed?

He has accused him of spinning things in open forums that did not tally with reality.

He says Rodgers' statements "played a part to a toxic environment around the team and encouraged animosity towards members of the management and the board. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

Such an extraordinary charge, that is. Lawyers might be mobilising as we speak.

His Ambition Conflicted with Celtic's Strategy Again

Looking back to better days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. The manager praised the shareholder at every turn, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers respected Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

This was Desmond who drew the heat when Rodgers' returned occurred, after the previous manager.

It was the most controversial appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have described it, the return of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

The shareholder had his back. Over time, the manager turned on the persuasion, achieved the wins and the honors, and an uneasy truce with the supporters turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

There was always - consistently - going to be a moment when Rodgers' ambition clashed with the club's operational approach, however.

It happened in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with bells on, recently. He publicly commented about the sluggish way the team conducted their transfer business, the interminable waiting for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

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

Even when the club spent record amounts of money in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the £9m Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well so far, with one already having left - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, often, he expressed this in public.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity within the club and then walked away. When asked about his comments at his next media briefing he would typically minimize it and almost reverse what he said.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, all are united, he'd claim. It looked like he was playing a dangerous game.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that allegedly came from a insider associated with the organization. It said that Rodgers 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 engineering his way out, this was the implication of the article.

Supporters were angered. They then viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his honor because his directors did not support his plans to achieve triumph.

The leak was damaging, naturally, and it was meant to hurt him, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we heard nothing further about it.

By then it was plain the manager was shedding the support of the people in charge.

The frequent {gripes