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Just a quarter of an hour following Celtic issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising resignation via a brief short communication, the howitzer landed, from Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

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

The man he persuaded to join the club when their rivals were gaining ground in that period and needed putting back in a box. And the figure he once more relied on after the previous manager left for another club in the recent offseason.

Such was the severity of his takedown, the jaw-dropping comeback of Martin O'Neill was practically an after-thought.

Two decades after his departure from the club, and after much of his recent life was given over to an continuous circuit of appearances and the playing of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a time. Based on things he has expressed lately, he has been eager to get another job. He will view this one as the ultimate chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Will he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly make a call to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

All-out Attempt at Character Assassination

The new manager's return - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the most significant shocking development was the brutal manner Desmond described the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded attempt at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "One individual's wish for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," wrote Desmond.

For a person who prizes decorum and places great store in business being done with discretion, if not outright secrecy, here was another example of how abnormal situations have become at Celtic.

The major figure, the organization's dominant figure, operates in the background. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to make all the important decisions he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He never attend club annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's reluctant to speak out.

He has been known on an rare moment to defend the club with confidential messages to media organisations, but nothing is heard in public.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to remain. And that's just what he went against when going all-out attack on Rodgers on Monday.

The official line from the team is that he resigned, but reviewing Desmond's criticism, line by line, you have to wonder why did he permit it to reach this far down the line?

If the manager is culpable of all of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to inquire why was the coach not dismissed?

He has charged him of distorting information in public that were inconsistent with the facts.

He claims his statements "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the team and encouraged hostility towards members of the executive team and the board. Some of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unwarranted and unacceptable."

What an remarkable allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be preparing as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Conflicted with the Club's Model Again

To return to better days, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to him and, truly, to no one other.

It was the figure who drew the criticism when Rodgers' comeback occurred, after the previous manager.

This marked the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as other supporters would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had his support. Gradually, the manager turned on the persuasion, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the fans became a love-in again.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a point when Rodgers' ambition came in contact with the club's operational approach, though.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired once more, with bells on, over the last year. He publicly commented about the slow way the team went about their player acquisitions, the interminable waiting for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

Time and again he stated about the necessity for what he called "flexibility" in the transfer window. Supporters concurred with him.

Despite the club splurged unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the £9m Adam Idah and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have performed well to date, with Idah since having left - the manager demanded more and more and, often, he did it in public.

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

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like Rodgers was playing a risky strategy.

A few months back there was a report in a publication that purportedly came from a insider associated with the club. It said that Rodgers was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his exit strategy.

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

Supporters were enraged. They then saw him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his board members wouldn't back his plans to achieve success.

This disclosure 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. Whether there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

At that point it was clear Rodgers was shedding the backing of the individuals in charge.

The regular {gripes