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Merely fifteen minutes after the club issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising resignation via a brief five-paragraph communication, the bombshell arrived, from Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

In 551-words, key investor Desmond savaged his old chum.

The man he persuaded to come to the team when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and required being in their place. And the man he again turned to after the previous manager departed to Tottenham in the recent offseason.

Such was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the astonishing comeback of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the club, and after much of his recent life was given over to an continuous series of appearances and the playing of all his past successes at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Based on things he has said recently, O'Neill has been eager to secure another job. He'll see this one as the ultimate chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such success and adulation.

Would he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well reach out to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

The new manager's return - as surreal as it is - can be parked because the biggest shocking development was the brutal manner Desmond wrote of the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For somebody who values decorum and places great store in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, here was a further illustration of how abnormal situations have grown at the club.

Desmond, the organization's most powerful figure, operates in the background. The remote leader, the one with the authority to take all the major calls he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any open setting.

He does not attend team annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're glowing in tone. And still, he's reluctant to communicate.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to defend the club with private messages to media organisations, but no statement is heard in public.

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

The directive from the team is that he resigned, but reading Desmond's criticism, carefully, one must question why he permit it to get such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is guilty of all of the things that the shareholder is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the coach not dismissed?

Desmond has charged him of distorting things in public that were inconsistent with reality.

He claims Rodgers' words "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the club and encouraged hostility towards members of the executive team and the directors. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

Such an remarkable charge, that is. Lawyers might be mobilising as we speak.

His Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Strategy Again

Looking back to better days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded the shareholder at every turn, thanked him every chance. Brendan respected him and, truly, to nobody else.

It was the figure who took the heat when Rodgers' comeback occurred, post-Postecoglou.

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

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Gradually, the manager turned on the persuasion, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the fans became a affectionate relationship once more.

There was always - consistently - going to be a point when Rodgers' ambition clashed with the club's operational approach, though.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it transpired once more, with added intensity, recently. He spoke openly about the slow way Celtic conducted their transfer business, the interminable delay for targets to be landed, then missed, as was frequently the case as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he stated about the necessity for what he called "flexibility" in the transfer window. The fans concurred with him.

Despite the club spent record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well to date, with Idah already having departed - Rodgers pushed for increased resources and, often, he did it in openly.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion within the team and then walked away. When asked about his comments at his subsequent media briefing he would usually minimize it and almost contradict what he said.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, all are united, he'd say. It appeared like Rodgers was engaging in a risky game.

Earlier this year there was a report in a publication that purportedly came from a insider associated with the club. It said that Rodgers was harming the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his exit strategy.

He desired not to be there and he was arranging his way out, that was the implication of the article.

Supporters were angered. They then saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his board members did not back his plans to achieve success.

The leak was poisonous, of course, and it was meant to harm Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we learned no more about it.

At that point it was clear the manager was losing the support of the people in charge.

The regular {gripes