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Just fifteen minutes after Celtic released the news of their manager's shock resignation via a perfunctory short statement, the bombshell arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent anger.

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

This individual he convinced to join the team when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and required being back in a box. Plus the man he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

Such was the ferocity of Desmond's critique, the jaw-dropping comeback of the former boss was almost an after-thought.

Twenty years after his departure from the organization, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an unending circuit of appearances and the performance of all his past successes at the team, Martin O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a time. Based on things he has said lately, O'Neill has been eager to get a new position. He will see this role as the ultimate chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such success and praise.

Would he relinquish it readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well make a call to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will serve as a soothing presence for the time being.

All-out Attempt at Character Assassination

The new manager's return - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the biggest shocking moment was the harsh way the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

It was a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unacceptable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For a person who prizes propriety and sets high importance in dealings being done with discretion, if not outright privacy, this was another illustration of how unusual situations have grown at Celtic.

The major figure, the club's dominant presence, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to make all the important calls he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any public forum.

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

He has been known on an occasion or two to defend the club with confidential missives to news outlets, but no statement is heard in the open.

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

The directive from the club is that he stepped down, but reading Desmond's invective, carefully, you have to wonder why he permit it to reach such a critical point?

If Rodgers is guilty of every one of the things that Desmond is claiming he's responsible for, then it's fair to ask why was the manager not removed?

He has charged him of distorting things in open forums that were inconsistent with the facts.

He claims his statements "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the club and fuelled animosity towards members of the management and the directors. A portion of the abuse aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

What an extraordinary charge, indeed. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Clashed with the Club's Model Again

To return to happier times, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Rodgers deferred to him and, truly, to no one other.

It was the figure who drew the heat when Rodgers' comeback occurred, after the previous manager.

This marked the most divisive appointment, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other Celtic fans would have described it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Gradually, the manager employed the persuasion, achieved the wins and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the fans became a affectionate relationship again.

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

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with bells on, recently. Rodgers spoke openly about the slow process Celtic went about their transfer business, the interminable delay for targets to be landed, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

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 twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it to date, with one already having left - the manager demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in public.

He set a controversy about a internal disunity inside the club and then walked away. Upon questioning about his comments at his next news conference he would usually downplay it and almost contradict what he said.

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

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that allegedly came from a source associated with the organization. It said that the manager was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his departure plan.

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

The fans were angered. They then saw him as similar to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his directors wouldn't back his vision to achieve triumph.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it did. He called for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we learned no more about it.

By then it was plain the manager was losing the backing of the people in charge.

The regular {gripes