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Merely fifteen minutes after Celtic released the news of their manager's surprising resignation via a brief five-paragraph statement, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

Through an extensive statement, key investor Dermot Desmond savaged his old chum.

This individual he convinced to come to the club when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and required being back in a box. And the figure he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for another club in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of his takedown, the astonishing return of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his recent life was dedicated to an unending series 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 maybe for a while. Considering comments he has expressed recently, he has been keen to secure another job. He will see this one as the ultimate opportunity, a present from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the place 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 their ex-manager, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the time being.

All-out Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be parked because the biggest shocking moment was the brutal manner the shareholder wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a branding of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the expense of others," wrote Desmond.

For somebody who values propriety and places great store in dealings being conducted with discretion, if not complete secrecy, here was another example of how abnormal situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the organization's dominant figure, operates in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to make all the major calls he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He never attend team annual meetings, sending his son, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in tone. And still, he's slow to speak out.

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

This is precisely how he's preferred it to remain. And it's just what he contradicted when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

The official line from the club is that he stepped down, but reviewing his invective, line by line, one must question why he allow it to reach this far down the line?

If the manager is guilty of every one of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it's fair to inquire why was the manager not dismissed?

He has accused him of spinning information in public that did not tally with the facts.

He claims his statements "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the club and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the management and the board. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unwarranted and unacceptable."

What an remarkable allegation, indeed. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

His Ambition Conflicted with the Club's Strategy Once More'

To return to happier times, they were tight, the two men. The manager lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him every chance. Rodgers respected Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

It was the figure who drew the criticism when his comeback occurred, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most divisive hiring, the return of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Gradually, Rodgers employed the charm, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the fans turned into a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a point when his goals came in contact with the club's operational approach, however.

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened again, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow way the team went about their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for prospects to be secured, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he stated about the need for what he called "flexibility" 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 another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - none of whom have cut it to date, with one already having departed - Rodgers pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in openly.

He set a controversy about a internal disunity within the club and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his next media briefing he would typically downplay it and nearly reverse what he said.

Internal issues? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like he was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly originated from a insider associated with the club. It said that Rodgers was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his departure plan.

He didn't want to be there and he was engineering his way out, this was the implication of the story.

The fans were enraged. They then viewed him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his directors wouldn't back his plans to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be removed. If there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

By then it was plain the manager was shedding the backing of the individuals above him.

The frequent {gripes