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Just a quarter of an hour following Celtic issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a perfunctory five-paragraph statement, the howitzer arrived, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

In 551-words, key investor Dermot Desmond savaged his former ally.

The man he persuaded to join the team when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and required being back in a box. Plus the man he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

Such was the severity of Desmond's takedown, the jaw-dropping comeback of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after much of his recent life was given over to an continuous circuit of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at the team, Martin O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a time. Based on things he has said lately, O'Neill has been keen to secure a new position. He will view this one as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such success and adulation.

Would he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly make a call to contact Postecoglou, but O'Neill will serve as a balm for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's reappearance - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' development was the harsh way the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

This constituted a forceful attempt at character assassination, a branding of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the expense of others," stated Desmond.

For a person who prizes decorum and places great store in business being conducted with discretion, if not complete privacy, this was another illustration of how abnormal situations have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's most powerful figure, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to take all the major calls he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any public forum.

He does not participate in club AGMs, sending his son, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about Celtic unless they're glowing in tone. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an rare moment to defend the club with confidential missives to media organisations, but nothing is made in public.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to be. And it's just what he went against when launching full thermonuclear on Rodgers on that day.

The official line from the team is that Rodgers resigned, but reviewing his criticism, line by line, you have to wonder why did he allow it to get such a critical point?

If the manager is culpable of every one of the accusations that Desmond is claiming he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the coach not dismissed?

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

He claims Rodgers' statements "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the club and fuelled hostility towards members of the executive team and the board. Some of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

What an remarkable charge, that is. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we speak.

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

To return to better times, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan respected Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

It was the figure who took the heat when Rodgers' returned occurred, after the previous manager.

This marked the most controversial hiring, the return of the prodigal son for a few or, as other Celtic fans would have described it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

The shareholder had his back. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the wins and the honors, and an fragile truce with the supporters turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

There was always - consistently - going to be a moment when his goals clashed with Celtic's business model, though.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with bells on, over the last year. He publicly commented about the sluggish process Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he stated about the need for what he called "flexibility" in the transfer window. Supporters concurred with him.

Despite the club splurged unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with one already having departed - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, often, he did it in public.

He planted a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the team and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would usually minimize it and nearly contradict what he stated.

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

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that allegedly came from a insider associated with the organization. It claimed that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his exit strategy.

He desired not to be present and he was arranging his exit, this was the implication of the story.

The fans were angered. They now saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his board members wouldn't support his plans to achieve triumph.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to hurt him, which it accomplished. He called for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we heard nothing further about it.

By then it was plain the manager was shedding the support of the people above him.

The frequent {gripes