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Merely fifteen minutes following the club issued the announcement of their manager's shock resignation via a perfunctory short communication, the bombshell arrived, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in obvious fury.

Through an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot Desmond savaged his former ally.

The man he persuaded to join the club when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and needed putting in their place. And the man he once more relied on after the previous manager departed to another club in the recent offseason.

Such was the severity of Desmond's critique, the jaw-dropping return of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Two decades after his departure from the club, and after a large part of his recent life was given over to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his past successes at Celtic, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a while. Considering comments he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been keen to get a new position. He will view this role as the ultimate chance, a present from the club's legacy, a return to the environment where he experienced such success and adulation.

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

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's reappearance - however strange as it may be - can be set aside because the biggest 'wow!' moment was the brutal way Desmond described Rodgers.

It was a forceful endeavor at character assassination, a branding of him as untrustful, a source of untruths, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For a person who values decorum and places great store in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, this was a further illustration of how abnormal things have become at the club.

Desmond, the club's most powerful presence, operates in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the authority to make all the important decisions he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He never attend club AGMs, sending his offspring, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to defend the club with private messages to news outlets, but nothing is heard in the open.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to be. And it's just what he contradicted when launching all-out attack on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the team is that he resigned, but reviewing his invective, line by line, you have to wonder why he permit it to get such a critical point?

If Rodgers is culpable of every one of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to ask why was the coach not removed?

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

He claims his statements "have contributed to a hostile environment around the team and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the management and the board. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been completely unwarranted and unacceptable."

Such an remarkable charge, indeed. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Clashed with Celtic's Model Again

To return to better times, they were close, the two men. Rodgers praised Desmond at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to him and, really, to no one other.

It was Desmond who drew the heat when his comeback happened, after the previous manager.

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

Desmond had his support. Over time, Rodgers employed the charm, achieved the wins and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the supporters became a affectionate relationship again.

There was always - consistently - going to be a moment when his goals clashed with the club's business model, 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 interminable delay for prospects to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he spoke about the necessity for what he termed "agility" in the transfer window. Supporters agreed with him.

Even when the organization splurged record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the £11m one signing, the £9m Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have performed well so far, with one already having departed - the manager demanded increased resources and, often, he expressed this in public.

He planted a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his next news conference he would typically downplay it and nearly reverse what he said.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like he was engaging in a risky game.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that allegedly came from a insider associated with the club. It claimed that Rodgers was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was managing his departure plan.

He didn't want to be there and he was engineering his way out, this was the implication of the story.

The fans were enraged. They then viewed him as similar to a martyr who might be removed on his honor because his board members wouldn't back his vision to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was meant to hurt Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we learned no more about it.

By then it was clear the manager was shedding the support of the people in charge.

The frequent {gripes