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Merely a quarter of an hour after Celtic released the announcement of their manager's surprising resignation via a perfunctory short statement, the howitzer landed, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent fury.

In an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot Desmond savaged his old chum.

This individual he convinced to join the club when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and required being in their place. And the figure he once more turned to after the previous manager departed to Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of his takedown, the astonishing return of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Two decades after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his recent life was given over to an continuous series of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his old hits at the team, O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

Currently - and maybe for a while. Considering comments he has said recently, O'Neill has been eager to secure another job. He will see this role as the perfect chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he experienced such success and praise.

Will he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the time being.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the most significant shocking development was the harsh way the shareholder wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the expense of others," wrote Desmond.

For a person who prizes propriety and sets high importance in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, here was a further example of how abnormal things have become at Celtic.

The major figure, the club's most powerful presence, moves in the background. The remote leader, the one with the power to make all the important decisions he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

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

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

This is precisely how he's preferred it to be. And it's exactly what he contradicted when going all-out attack on Rodgers on that day.

The official line from the team is that Rodgers stepped down, but reviewing his invective, line by line, you have to wonder why he allow it to reach such a critical point?

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

Desmond has charged him of distorting things in public that did not tally with the facts.

He says his statements "played a part to a toxic environment around the club and encouraged hostility towards members of the management and the board. Some of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and unacceptable."

Such an extraordinary charge, that is. Lawyers might be mobilising as we speak.

His Ambition Clashed with the Club's Strategy Again

Looking back to happier days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to him and, truly, to nobody else.

This was the figure who drew the criticism when Rodgers' comeback happened, after the previous manager.

This marked the most divisive hiring, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other Celtic fans would have described it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had his back. Over time, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, delivered the wins and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the fans turned into a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when Rodgers' goals came in contact with the club's business model, however.

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened again, with bells on, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow way Celtic went about their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was believed.

Time and again he spoke about the need for what he termed "agility" in the transfer window. Supporters concurred with him.

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the £11m one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have cut it so far, with one already having left - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his next news conference he would typically downplay it and almost reverse what he stated.

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

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a insider associated with the organization. It claimed that the manager was harming the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was orchestrating his departure plan.

He didn't want to be present and he was arranging his way out, this was the tone of the story.

Supporters were angered. They then viewed him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his board members did not back his vision to bring triumph.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to hurt Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we heard nothing further about it.

At that point it was clear the manager was shedding the backing of the individuals above him.

The frequent {gripes