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Just fifteen minutes following Celtic issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a perfunctory five-paragraph statement, the howitzer landed, from Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

Through an extensive statement, key investor Dermot Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

The man he persuaded to come to the club when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and needed putting back in a box. And the man he again relied on 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 practically an after-thought.

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after much of his recent life was dedicated to an continuous circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a while. Based on things he has said recently, he has been eager to get another job. He will view this role as the perfect opportunity, a present from the club's legacy, a return to the environment where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Will he give it up easily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well reach out to sound out their ex-manager, but the new appointment will serve as a balm for the moment.

'Full-blooded Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it is - can be set aside because the most significant shocking development was the brutal way the shareholder described Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a branding of him as deceitful, a source of untruths, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the expense of others," stated he.

For a person who prizes decorum and places great store in business being done with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, this was a further illustration of how abnormal situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the club's dominant figure, operates in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to make all the major calls he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He never attend team annual meetings, sending his son, Ross, instead. He seldom, if ever, gives interviews about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the organization with private messages to media organisations, but nothing is heard in public.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And that's exactly what he went against when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

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

If the manager is guilty of all of the accusations that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the manager not removed?

Desmond has accused him of distorting things in open forums that were inconsistent with reality.

He says Rodgers' words "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the club and fuelled hostility towards members of the executive team and the directors. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

Such an remarkable charge, that is. Legal representatives might be preparing as we discuss.

His Aspirations Conflicted with the Club's Model Once More'

Looking back to better days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan respected Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

This was Desmond who drew the criticism when Rodgers' comeback occurred, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as some other supporters would have described it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had his back. Over time, the manager employed the persuasion, delivered the victories and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the supporters turned into a love-in again.

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

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with bells on, over the last year. Rodgers publicly commented about the sluggish way the team conducted their player acquisitions, the endless waiting for targets to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

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

Despite the club splurged record amounts of money in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well so far, with Idah already having departed - Rodgers demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in public.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity within the club and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would usually downplay it and almost reverse what he said.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It looked like he was playing a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that allegedly originated from a source associated with the club. It claimed that Rodgers was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was managing his exit strategy.

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

Supporters were enraged. They then viewed him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his directors did not back his plans to achieve triumph.

The leak was damaging, naturally, and it was intended to harm him, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we heard nothing further about it.

By then it was clear the manager was shedding the support of the people in charge.

The regular {gripes