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Merely fifteen minutes after the club issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a brief short statement, the bombshell landed, from Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

Through 551-words, key investor Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

This individual he convinced to join the team when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and required being back in a box. Plus the man he again turned to 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 organization, and after much of his latter years was given over to an continuous series of appearances and the performance of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a time. Considering things he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been keen to get a new position. He will view this role as the perfect chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he experienced such glory and adulation.

Would he relinquish it readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club could possibly reach out to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will serve as a balm for the moment.

All-out Attempt at Character Assassination

The new manager's return - as surreal as it is - can be parked because the most significant 'wow!' moment was the brutal manner Desmond described Rodgers.

This constituted a forceful attempt at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a spreader of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the cost of others," stated he.

For a person who prizes decorum and sets high importance in dealings being conducted with confidentiality, if not complete privacy, here was another illustration of how unusual situations have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the organization's dominant presence, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to take all the major calls he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He does not attend club annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to defend the club with confidential messages to media organisations, but no statement is made in public.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And that's just what he went against when launching full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the team is that Rodgers resigned, but reading Desmond's invective, line by line, one must question why did he allow it to reach such a critical point?

If Rodgers is guilty of all of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to inquire why had been the manager not dismissed?

He has charged him of distorting information in public that did not tally with reality.

He claims Rodgers' statements "have contributed to a hostile environment around the team and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the management and the directors. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

What an extraordinary allegation, indeed. Legal representatives might be preparing as we discuss.

His Aspirations Conflicted with Celtic's Model Again

Looking back to happier days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded the shareholder at every turn, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan respected Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

This was the figure who took the criticism when his returned occurred, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive hiring, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other supporters would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the lurch for another club.

Desmond had his support. Gradually, the manager employed the charm, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the fans became a love-in again.

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

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow process the team went about their player acquisitions, the endless waiting for prospects 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 called "agility" in the transfer window. The fans agreed with him.

Even when the club spent record amounts of funds in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the £9m Adam Idah and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have performed well to date, with Idah since having departed - the manager pushed for more and more and, often, he did it in public.

He set a bomb about a internal disunity within the team and then walked away. Upon questioning about his comments at his next news conference he would usually downplay it and nearly contradict what he said.

Internal issues? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was playing a risky strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that purportedly originated from a insider close to the club. It said that the manager was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his exit strategy.

He desired not to be present and he was arranging his exit, that was the tone of the article.

The fans were enraged. They then viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his board members wouldn't support his plans to achieve success.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was intended to hurt Rodgers, which it accomplished. He called for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

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

The regular {gripes