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Just fifteen minutes following Celtic released the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising resignation via a brief five-paragraph communication, the howitzer arrived, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent fury.

Through an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot Desmond savaged 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 man he again turned to after the previous manager left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

Such was the severity of his critique, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an unending circuit of appearances and the playing of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and perhaps for a time. Considering comments he has said recently, O'Neill has been keen to get another job. He will see this one as the perfect chance, a present from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

Will he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic might well make a call to contact their ex-manager, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the most significant 'wow!' development was the brutal manner the shareholder wrote of Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a branding of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For somebody who prizes decorum and places great store in dealings being conducted with discretion, if not outright privacy, here was another illustration of how unusual things have become at Celtic.

The major figure, the organization's most powerful figure, operates in the margins. The remote leader, the individual with the authority to make all the major decisions he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any public forum.

He never attend club annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, Ross, in his place. He seldom, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's reluctant to communicate.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the organization with confidential missives to media organisations, but no statement is made in public.

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

The official line from the team is that he stepped down, but reading his criticism, carefully, one must question why he allow it to reach this far down the line?

If Rodgers is culpable of all of the accusations that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to inquire why was the coach not dismissed?

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

He claims Rodgers' statements "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the team and fuelled animosity towards members of the management and the directors. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

What an extraordinary allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

His Aspirations Conflicted with the Club's Model Again

To return to happier days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to him and, really, to nobody else.

This was the figure who took the criticism when Rodgers' comeback happened, post-Postecoglou.

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

The shareholder had his support. Gradually, the manager employed the persuasion, delivered the wins and the honors, and an fragile peace with the supporters became a love-in again.

There was always - always - going to be a moment when his ambition came in contact with the club's operational approach, though.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired once more, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers spoke openly about the slow process Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the endless waiting for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was too often the situation as far as he was concerned.

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

Even when the organization splurged record amounts of funds in a calendar year on the £11m one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have performed well to date, with one since having departed - Rodgers demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in openly.

He planted a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his next news conference he would typically minimize it and almost reverse what he said.

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

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly came from a insider close to the organization. It said that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his open criticisms and that his true aim was managing his departure plan.

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

Supporters were angered. 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 vision to bring triumph.

This disclosure was damaging, of course, and it was intended to hurt him, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. Whether there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

By then it was clear Rodgers was losing the backing of the individuals above him.

The regular {gripes