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Just a quarter of an hour after the club released the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising resignation via a brief five-paragraph communication, the bombshell arrived, from Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

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

The man he persuaded to come to the team when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and required being in their place. Plus the figure he once more turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the severity of his critique, the jaw-dropping return of Martin O'Neill was almost an after-thought.

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

For now - and maybe for a time. Considering things he has said lately, O'Neill has been keen to get another job. He'll view this one as the perfect chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the place where he enjoyed such glory and praise.

Would he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly make a call to sound out their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the time being.

All-out Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - however strange as it may be - can be set aside because the biggest shocking moment was the harsh way the shareholder wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a forceful attempt at defamation, a branding of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the expense of others," wrote he.

For somebody who prizes decorum and places great store in business being done with discretion, if not outright secrecy, this was a further illustration of how abnormal situations have grown at Celtic.

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

He never participate in club annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, his son, instead. He seldom, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to defend the organization with confidential missives to news outlets, but no statement is made in the open.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And that's just what he went against when launching full thermonuclear on the manager on Monday.

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

If the manager is culpable of every one of the accusations that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to inquire why had been the manager not dismissed?

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

He claims his statements "have contributed to a hostile environment around the club and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the management and the directors. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and unacceptable."

What an extraordinary allegation, indeed. Legal representatives might be preparing as we discuss.

His Aspirations Clashed with the Club's Model Again

To return to happier times, they were close, the two men. The manager praised Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to him and, really, to nobody else.

It was the figure who drew the criticism when Rodgers' returned occurred, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other supporters would have put it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Over time, Rodgers employed the charm, delivered the wins and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the supporters turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

There was always - always - going to be a point when his ambition clashed with the club's business model, however.

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with bells on, recently. He publicly commented about the slow process the team conducted their transfer business, the endless delay for targets to be secured, then missed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

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

Even when the organization spent unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the £9m another player and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have cut it so far, with one since having left - Rodgers pushed for increased resources and, often, he did it in openly.

He planted a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his subsequent news conference he would usually downplay it and almost reverse what he stated.

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

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that purportedly originated from a source close to the organization. It claimed that Rodgers was harming Celtic with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his departure plan.

He desired not to be present and he was arranging his way out, this was the tone of the story.

The fans were enraged. They now saw him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his honor because his directors wouldn't back his vision to achieve success.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was meant to hurt Rodgers, which it accomplished. He called for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

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

The frequent {gripes