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Merely a quarter of an hour after the club issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising resignation via a brief short statement, the bombshell arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with clear signs in obvious anger.

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

The man he convinced to come to the team when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and required being back in a box. 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.

Two decades 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 returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a while. Considering things he has expressed lately, he has been keen to secure another job. He will see this one as the perfect opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

Will he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic might well make a call to contact Postecoglou, but O'Neill will serve as a balm for the time being.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the most significant shocking development was the harsh way Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at defamation, a labeling of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," wrote he.

For a person who values propriety and sets high importance in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not complete privacy, here was a further example of how unusual situations have grown at Celtic.

The major figure, the club's most powerful presence, operates in the background. The remote leader, the individual with the power to take all the important decisions he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He never participate in club AGMs, dispatching his offspring, Ross, instead. He seldom, if ever, does interviews about the team unless they're glowing in tone. And still, he's reluctant to speak out.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to defend the club with confidential messages to news outlets, but nothing is heard in the open.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And it's exactly what he contradicted when launching all-out attack on Rodgers on Monday.

The official line from the team is that he stepped down, but reading Desmond's invective, carefully, one must question why did he allow it to get such a critical point?

Assuming the manager is culpable of every one of the things that the shareholder is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to inquire why was the coach not removed?

He has accused him of spinning things in public that did not tally with reality.

He claims his words "played a part to a hostile environment around the club and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the management and the board. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

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

His Aspirations Conflicted with Celtic's Strategy Again

Looking back to better days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised Desmond at every turn, thanked him every chance. Rodgers respected Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who drew the heat when Rodgers' returned happened, after the previous manager.

This marked the most controversial appointment, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the lurch for Leicester.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Gradually, the manager employed the persuasion, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the fans turned into a love-in once more.

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

It happened in his initial tenure 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 endless delay for targets to be landed, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he spoke about the necessity for what he termed "flexibility" in the transfer window. The fans agreed with him.

Despite the club splurged record amounts of funds in a calendar year on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly another player and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have performed well to date, with one already having left - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he did it in openly.

He planted a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then walked away. Upon questioning about his comments at his subsequent media briefing he would usually downplay it and almost reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, all are united, he'd say. It looked like he was playing a risky game.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that allegedly originated from a source associated with the organization. It said that Rodgers was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was orchestrating his departure plan.

He desired not to be present and he was engineering his exit, this was the implication of the article.

Supporters were enraged. They then saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his board members wouldn't support his plans to achieve success.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was meant to harm Rodgers, which it did. He called for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we heard no more about it.

By then it was plain Rodgers was losing the support of the people in charge.

The frequent {gripes