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Merely fifteen minutes following the club issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising resignation via a brief five-paragraph communication, the bombshell landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious anger.

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

The man he persuaded to join the team when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and required being back in a box. And the man he again relied on after the previous manager left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

Such was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the jaw-dropping return of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the organization, and after much of his latter years was given over to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a time. Based on things he has expressed lately, he has been eager to get a new position. He'll see this role as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the environment where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Would he give it up easily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well reach out to sound out Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

All-out Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be parked because the most significant 'wow!' development was the brutal manner Desmond wrote of the former manager.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," wrote Desmond.

For somebody who prizes decorum and places great store in dealings being done with discretion, if not complete secrecy, this was another illustration of how unusual things have become at the club.

The major figure, the club's most powerful figure, operates in the background. The remote leader, the one with the authority to make all the major decisions he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He does not participate in team annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, Ross, instead. He seldom, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's slow to speak out.

He has been known on an rare moment to defend the organization with confidential missives to media organisations, but nothing is made in public.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to be. And it's just what he contradicted when launching all-out attack on Rodgers on Monday.

The official line from the club is that he resigned, but reviewing Desmond's invective, carefully, one must question why he permit it to reach such a critical point?

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

Desmond has accused him of distorting information in public that did not tally with the facts.

He says his statements "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the club and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the management and the board. Some of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

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

His Aspirations Clashed with the Club's Strategy Again

To return to happier days, they were close, the two men. Rodgers lauded Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan respected him and, truly, to no one other.

It was the figure who took the criticism when Rodgers' returned happened, after the previous manager.

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

Desmond had his back. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the charm, achieved the wins and the honors, and an uneasy truce with the fans turned into a love-in again.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a point when his goals clashed with the club's operational approach, however.

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the sluggish process the team conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable waiting for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

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

Even when the club spent record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the £11m one signing, the £9m Adam Idah and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have cut it to date, with one already having left - the manager pushed for increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in public.

He planted a controversy about a lack of cohesion within the team and then walked away. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent media briefing he would typically downplay it and almost reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, all are united, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a risky game.

Earlier this year there was a report in a publication that allegedly originated from a insider associated with the organization. It claimed that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

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

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was intended to hurt Rodgers, which it did. He called for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

By then it was clear Rodgers was losing the backing of the people in charge.

The regular {gripes