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Merely a quarter of an hour after Celtic issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the bombshell landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

Through 551-words, major shareholder Dermot Desmond savaged 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. And the man he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of his takedown, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Two decades after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his recent life was dedicated to an unending series of appearances and the playing of all his past successes at the team, Martin O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and perhaps for a while. Considering comments he has said recently, O'Neill has been eager to get a new position. He will see this role as the perfect opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

Would he give it up easily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will serve as a balm for the moment.

All-out Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be set aside because the biggest shocking moment was the harsh manner the shareholder described the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For somebody who values decorum and sets high importance in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not complete privacy, this was a further illustration of how abnormal things have grown at Celtic.

Desmond, the organization's most powerful presence, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to make all the important decisions he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He does not participate in club annual meetings, sending his offspring, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to support the club with private missives to news outlets, but no statement is made in the open.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to be. And it's just what he contradicted when launching full thermonuclear on the manager on Monday.

The directive from the club is that Rodgers stepped down, but reviewing Desmond's criticism, line by line, one must question why he allow it to get such a critical point?

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

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

He claims Rodgers' words "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the club and encouraged hostility towards members of the executive team and the directors. Some of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and unacceptable."

What an remarkable charge, indeed. Lawyers might be preparing as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Ambition Clashed with the Club's Model Once More'

To return to better times, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to him and, truly, to no one other.

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

This marked the most controversial hiring, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other supporters would have described it, the return of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the victories and the honors, and an fragile truce with the supporters became a affectionate relationship again.

There was always - always - going to be a point when Rodgers' goals came in contact with Celtic's business model, though.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired once more, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers spoke openly about the slow process Celtic went about their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for targets to be secured, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he spoke about the need for what he called "agility" in the market. Supporters concurred with him.

Despite the club spent record amounts of money in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the £9m another player and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have cut it to date, with Idah since having left - Rodgers pushed for increased resources and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then walked away. 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 say. It looked like he was playing a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly originated from a source close to the organization. It claimed that Rodgers was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his departure plan.

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

The fans were enraged. They then viewed him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his honor because his directors wouldn't support his vision to bring triumph.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was intended to hurt Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

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

The frequent {gripes