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Just fifteen minutes after the club issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising resignation via a perfunctory short statement, the bombshell arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

Through 551-words, key investor Dermot Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

The man he persuaded to come to the club when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and required being in their place. Plus the figure he once more turned to after the previous manager left for another club in the recent offseason.

Such was the ferocity of his critique, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a time. Based on things he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been keen to secure a new position. He'll view this one as the perfect opportunity, a present from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the environment where he enjoyed such glory and praise.

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

All-out Attempt at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be parked because the most significant shocking moment was the harsh manner the shareholder described Rodgers.

It was a forceful attempt at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of untruths, a spreader of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," stated he.

For somebody who prizes decorum and sets high importance in business being done with discretion, if not outright secrecy, this was another example of how abnormal things have become at the club.

Desmond, the club's most powerful figure, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the power to take all the important decisions he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any open setting.

He never participate in team AGMs, dispatching his offspring, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's slow to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to defend the club with private messages to news outlets, but nothing is heard in public.

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

The official line from the club is that Rodgers resigned, but reading his invective, carefully, one must question why did he permit it to get this far down the line?

If Rodgers is guilty of every one of the accusations that Desmond is claiming he's guilty of, then it's fair to ask why had been the coach not removed?

Desmond has charged him of spinning information in public that were inconsistent with the facts.

He says Rodgers' statements "have contributed to a toxic environment around the club and fuelled hostility towards members of the management and the directors. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

Such an remarkable allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we speak.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Conflicted with Celtic's Model Again

Looking back to happier days, they were tight, the two men. The manager lauded Desmond at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to him and, really, to nobody else.

This was the figure who drew the criticism when Rodgers' comeback happened, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most controversial appointment, the return of the returning hero for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have described it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the lurch for another club.

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

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

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired once more, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish way Celtic went about their transfer business, the interminable delay for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he spoke about the need for what he termed "agility" in the transfer window. Supporters concurred with him.

Even when the club splurged unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well so far, with one already having departed - the manager demanded more and more and, often, he did it in openly.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity inside the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would typically minimize it and nearly contradict what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, all are united, he'd claim. It looked like Rodgers was playing a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly originated from a insider associated with the organization. It said that Rodgers was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He desired not to be there and he was engineering his way out, this was the tone of the story.

The fans were enraged. They now viewed him as similar to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his directors wouldn't support his vision to bring triumph.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was meant to hurt Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. If there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

At that point it was plain the manager was losing the support of the people above him.

The regular {gripes