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Merely fifteen minutes following Celtic issued the announcement of their manager's shock resignation via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the bombshell arrived, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

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

The man he persuaded to come to the team when Rangers were gaining ground in that period and required being in their place. And the man he again 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 secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the club, and after a large part of his latter years was dedicated to an continuous series of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and perhaps for a time. Considering comments he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been keen to secure a new position. He will view this role as the perfect chance, a present from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the place where he enjoyed such glory and adulation.

Would he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well reach out to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will serve as a soothing presence for the time being.

All-out Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - however strange as it is - can be set aside because the most significant shocking moment was the brutal way Desmond wrote of the former manager.

It was a forceful attempt at character assassination, a branding of him as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," wrote Desmond.

For somebody who prizes propriety and places great store in business being conducted with discretion, if not outright secrecy, here was a further example of how unusual situations have grown at the club.

The major figure, the club's dominant figure, moves in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the power to make all the important decisions he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any public forum.

He does not participate in team annual meetings, sending his son, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about Celtic unless they're glowing in tone. And still, he's slow to speak out.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the organization with confidential missives to media organisations, but nothing is made in the open.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to remain. And that's exactly what he went against when going full thermonuclear on the manager on that day.

The directive from the club is that he stepped down, but reviewing his invective, line by line, one must question why he permit it to get such a critical point?

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

He has charged him of distorting things in open forums that were inconsistent with reality.

He says Rodgers' words "have contributed to a hostile environment around the club and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the management and the board. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and improper."

Such an extraordinary allegation, indeed. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we speak.

His Ambition Clashed with the Club's Strategy Once More'

To return to better times, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised Desmond at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan respected him and, truly, to no one other.

This was Desmond who took the heat when his returned occurred, after the previous manager.

It was the most controversial appointment, the return of the returning hero for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for another club.

Desmond had his back. Gradually, the manager turned on the charm, delivered the victories and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the fans turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

There was always - always - going to be a point when his goals clashed with the club's business model, however.

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired again, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers spoke openly about the slow process Celtic conducted their transfer business, the endless waiting for targets to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

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

Despite the club spent unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the costly another player and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have performed well so far, with Idah since having departed - Rodgers pushed for increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in public.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his next media briefing he would typically minimize it and nearly contradict what he said.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous game.

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that allegedly came from a source close to the club. It claimed that the manager was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be there and he was arranging his way out, that was the tone of the article.

The fans were angered. They now saw him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his directors did not support his vision to bring success.

The leak was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it did. He called for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

By then it was plain the manager was losing the backing of the individuals above him.

The frequent {gripes