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Merely fifteen minutes after the club released the news of their manager's surprising resignation via a brief five-paragraph statement, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

Through an extensive statement, key investor Dermot Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

This individual he convinced to join the team when their rivals were gaining ground in that period and needed putting back in a box. And the man he once more relied on after the previous manager departed to Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of his critique, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was practically an after-thought.

Two decades after his exit from the organization, and after much of his recent life was dedicated to an continuous circuit of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

Currently - and perhaps for a time. Considering comments he has said lately, he has been eager to get a new position. He will view this role as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Would he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. Celtic could possibly reach out to sound out their ex-manager, but the new appointment will serve as a balm for the time being.

All-out Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' moment was the harsh way Desmond wrote of the former manager.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For somebody who values propriety and sets high importance in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, this was another illustration of how abnormal situations have become at the club.

Desmond, the club's dominant presence, moves in the margins. The remote leader, the individual with the power to take all the major decisions he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not attend club AGMs, sending his offspring, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about the team unless they're hagiographic in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the club with private messages to news outlets, but no statement is made in the open.

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

The official line from the team is that Rodgers resigned, but reading his invective, carefully, one must question why he allow it to get such a critical point?

If the manager is guilty of every one of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to inquire why was the manager not removed?

He has charged him of spinning information in public that did not tally with reality.

He says Rodgers' words "have contributed to a toxic environment around the team and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the executive team and the board. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

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

His Ambition Conflicted with the Club's Strategy Again

Looking back to better times, they were close, the two men. The manager lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him every chance. Rodgers respected him and, truly, to no one other.

This was Desmond who took the heat when his comeback happened, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as some other Celtic fans would have described it, the arrival of the shameless one, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Gradually, Rodgers employed the persuasion, achieved the victories and the honors, and an fragile peace with the supporters turned into a affectionate relationship again.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a moment when Rodgers' goals came in contact with Celtic's operational approach, though.

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish process Celtic went about their player acquisitions, the endless delay for targets to be secured, then missed, as was frequently the case as far as he was believed.

Time and again he stated about the necessity for what he called "flexibility" in the transfer window. Supporters concurred with him.

Even when the club splurged record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the £9m Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - all of whom have performed well to date, with Idah since having left - the manager pushed for increased resources and, often, he did it in public.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his next news conference he would usually downplay it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It appeared like he was playing a dangerous game.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that purportedly originated from a source close to the club. It said that the manager was harming the team with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be there and he was engineering his exit, this was the tone of the story.

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

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was intended to hurt him, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. If there was a probe then we heard no more about it.

At that point it was clear the manager was losing the backing of the individuals in charge.

The frequent {gripes