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Just fifteen minutes after Celtic released the announcement of their manager's shock resignation via a perfunctory five-paragraph statement, the bombshell arrived, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

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

The man he convinced to join the club when their rivals were gaining ground in that period and needed putting back in a box. Plus the man he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the astonishing return of Martin O'Neill was almost 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 appearances and the playing of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and perhaps for a time. Based on comments he has expressed recently, he has been eager to secure a new position. He will view this role as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the environment where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

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

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it is - can be parked because the most significant shocking moment was the harsh manner Desmond wrote of the former manager.

This constituted a forceful attempt at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-interest at the expense of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For a person who values decorum and places great store in business being done with discretion, if not outright secrecy, this was a further example of how unusual things have grown at the club.

Desmond, the organization's dominant figure, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to make all the major calls he pleases without having the obligation of justifying them in any public forum.

He never attend team annual meetings, sending his offspring, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in nature. And even then, he's slow to speak out.

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

This is precisely how he's preferred it to remain. And that's exactly what he went against when launching all-out attack on the manager on Monday.

The directive from the club is that Rodgers resigned, but reading Desmond's criticism, carefully, one must question why did he allow it to get this far down the line?

Assuming Rodgers is guilty of every one of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to inquire why was the manager not dismissed?

Desmond has charged him of spinning things in open forums that did not tally with the facts.

He claims Rodgers' statements "have contributed to a hostile atmosphere around the club and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the board. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and unacceptable."

What an extraordinary charge, that is. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

His Ambition Clashed with the Club's Model Again

Looking back to happier days, they were close, the two men. The manager praised Desmond at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Rodgers respected Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

It was the figure who drew the criticism when his comeback happened, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most controversial hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have described it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' back. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the charm, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the supporters turned into a affectionate relationship again.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a moment when Rodgers' ambition clashed with Celtic's business model, though.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with added intensity, over the last year. He spoke openly about the sluggish process Celtic went about their transfer business, the interminable waiting for targets to be secured, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was believed.

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

Despite the organization spent unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the expensive Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the significant Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with Idah since having left - the manager demanded more and more and, often, he did it in public.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his next news conference he would usually minimize it and almost reverse what he said.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, all are united, he'd say. It looked like he was engaging in a risky strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that purportedly originated from a source close to the club. It claimed that the manager was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

Supporters were enraged. They then saw him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his honor because his directors did not support his plans to bring success.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be removed. If there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

By then it was plain Rodgers was shedding the backing of the individuals above him.

The regular {gripes