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Just a quarter of an hour after Celtic issued the news of their manager's shock resignation via a brief five-paragraph statement, the bombshell landed, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in obvious anger.

Through 551-words, major shareholder Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

The man he persuaded to come to the team when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and required being in their place. Plus the man he once more turned to after the previous manager departed to another club in the recent offseason.

Such was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the astonishing comeback of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the organization, and after a large part of his recent life was dedicated to an continuous series of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Based on things he has said recently, he has been keen to secure a new position. He'll see this one as the ultimate chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he enjoyed such glory and praise.

Will he relinquish it readily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly make a call to sound out their ex-manager, but O'Neill will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - as surreal as it is - can be parked because the most significant shocking moment was the brutal manner Desmond wrote of the former manager.

It was a forceful endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a perpetrator of untruths, a spreader of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," wrote he.

For somebody who values propriety and places great store in business being done with discretion, if not complete privacy, here was a further illustration of how unusual things have grown at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's dominant figure, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to take all the important decisions he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He never attend team annual meetings, dispatching his son, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about the team unless they're glowing in tone. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the club with private messages to media organisations, but nothing is made in public.

It's exactly 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 team is that he stepped down, but reviewing Desmond's invective, carefully, one must question why did he allow it to reach such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of all of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why was the coach not dismissed?

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

He says his words "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the team and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the management and the directors. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

Such an remarkable allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we speak.

His Ambition Conflicted with the Club's Strategy Again

To return to better days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers lauded Desmond at every turn, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to him and, really, to no one other.

This was Desmond who took the heat when Rodgers' comeback happened, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for a few or, as some other supporters would have put it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had his support. Over time, Rodgers turned on the charm, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the fans turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

There was always - always - going to be a moment when his goals clashed with Celtic's operational approach, though.

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired once more, with added intensity, over the last year. He spoke openly about the sluggish way the team went about their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

Time and again he stated about the necessity for what he called "flexibility" in the market. The fans agreed with him.

Even when the club splurged unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the £11m one signing, the £9m another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - none of whom have cut it so far, with Idah already having left - the manager demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent media briefing he would usually downplay it and almost contradict what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, all are united, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was playing a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that allegedly originated from a source associated with the organization. It claimed that Rodgers was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He desired not to be present and he was engineering his way out, this was the tone of the story.

Supporters were angered. They now viewed him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his board members wouldn't back his vision to bring success.

The leak was damaging, naturally, and it was meant to hurt him, which it accomplished. 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 clear the manager was shedding the backing of the people above him.

The regular {gripes