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Just fifteen minutes after the club released the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a brief five-paragraph statement, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent fury.

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

This individual he convinced to come to the club when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting in their place. Plus the figure he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the recent offseason.

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

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

For now - and perhaps for a time. Considering things he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been eager to secure another job. He will view this one as the ultimate chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he enjoyed such glory and praise.

Will he give it up readily? It seems unlikely. The club might well reach out to sound out Postecoglou, but the new appointment will serve as a soothing presence for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the most significant shocking development was the harsh manner the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

It was a forceful attempt at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a source of untruths, a disseminator of misinformation; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," stated he.

For a person who prizes decorum and places great store in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not complete privacy, here was another illustration of how unusual situations have grown at the club.

The major figure, the organization's dominant presence, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to make all the major calls he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any public forum.

He does not participate in club annual meetings, sending his son, his son, in his place. He seldom, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's slow to speak out.

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

It's exactly how he's preferred it to be. And that's exactly what he went against when going all-out attack on Rodgers on that day.

The directive from the club is that he stepped down, but reviewing Desmond's invective, line by line, you have to wonder why did he allow it to reach this far down the line?

If Rodgers is culpable of all of the accusations that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to inquire why was the coach not dismissed?

Desmond has charged him of spinning things in open forums that were inconsistent with reality.

He says Rodgers' words "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the team and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the management and the directors. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

Such an extraordinary charge, indeed. Lawyers might be preparing as we speak.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Conflicted with the Club's Strategy Once More'

To return to happier times, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised the shareholder at every turn, thanked him every chance. Rodgers deferred to him and, really, to no one other.

It was Desmond who took the heat when his returned occurred, after the previous manager.

It was the most controversial hiring, the reappearance of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other supporters would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had his support. Over time, Rodgers turned on the charm, achieved the wins and the honors, and an fragile truce with the supporters became a affectionate relationship again.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a moment when his ambition clashed with Celtic's business model, though.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with bells on, recently. He publicly commented about the sluggish way Celtic went about their player acquisitions, the endless delay for targets to be landed, then missed, as was frequently the case as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he spoke about the necessity for what he called "flexibility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the club splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the £11m one signing, the £9m another player and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have cut it so far, with one already having departed - the manager pushed for increased resources and, often, he did it in public.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity within the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent media briefing he would usually downplay it and almost reverse what he said.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It appeared like he was playing a risky strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that purportedly originated from a source close to the club. It said that the manager was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his exit strategy.

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

Supporters were enraged. They then saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his directors wouldn't support his plans to bring triumph.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was meant to hurt him, which it accomplished. He demanded for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

At that point it was plain the manager was losing the backing of the people in charge.

The frequent {gripes