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

In 551-words, major shareholder Desmond savaged his old chum.

The man he persuaded to join the club when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and needed putting in their place. And the man he once more relied on after the previous manager left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's critique, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Two decades after his exit from the organization, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an unending circuit of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Based on comments he has said lately, O'Neill has been eager to secure another job. He will view this role as the ultimate chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he experienced such success and adulation.

Will he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic might well make a call to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will serve as a soothing presence for the time being.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it is - can be set aside because the most significant shocking moment was the brutal manner the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

It was a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a labeling of him as untrustful, a source of untruths, a spreader of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the expense of others," wrote he.

For somebody who prizes decorum and sets high importance in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, this was another example of how abnormal situations have grown at the club.

Desmond, the club's dominant presence, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the power to take all the important decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He does not attend team annual meetings, sending his offspring, Ross, instead. He seldom, if ever, does media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in tone. And even then, he's reluctant to speak out.

He has been known on an occasion or two to defend the organization with confidential messages to news outlets, but no statement is heard in public.

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

The official line from the club is that Rodgers resigned, but reviewing Desmond's criticism, carefully, you have to wonder why did he allow it to get such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of every one of the accusations that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it's fair to inquire why was the coach not dismissed?

Desmond has accused him of spinning things in public that did not tally with the facts.

He says Rodgers' words "have contributed to a hostile atmosphere around the team and fuelled animosity towards individuals of the management and the directors. Some of the criticism directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unjustified and improper."

What an remarkable charge, indeed. Lawyers might be mobilising as we speak.

'Rodgers' Ambition Clashed with the Club's Model Once More'

Looking back to happier days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded the shareholder at every turn, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan respected Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

This was the figure who took the heat when his comeback happened, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Over time, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the victories and the honors, and an fragile peace with the fans became a affectionate relationship again.

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

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with bells on, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow way the team went about their transfer business, the endless waiting for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he stated about the need for what he called "agility" in the transfer window. The fans agreed with him.

Even when the club splurged record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have performed well so far, with Idah since having left - the manager pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in public.

He set a bomb about a internal disunity inside the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his next media briefing he would usually minimize it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It appeared like Rodgers was playing a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that purportedly came from a insider associated with the organization. It claimed 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 exit, that was the tone of the article.

Supporters were angered. They then viewed him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his board members did not back his vision to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was meant to hurt Rodgers, which it did. He called for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we heard nothing further about it.

By then it was plain Rodgers was losing the backing of the people in charge.

The frequent {gripes