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Just a quarter of an hour following the club issued the news of their manager's surprising resignation via a perfunctory short statement, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

In an extensive statement, key investor Desmond savaged his former ally.

The man he persuaded to come to the club when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and required being back in a box. Plus the man he again relied on after the previous manager departed to Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's critique, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was practically an after-thought.

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

Currently - and maybe for a while. Based on comments he has said lately, O'Neill has been keen to get a new position. He'll view this role as the perfect chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Will he give it up easily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly make a call to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the time being.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the biggest shocking moment was the brutal manner the shareholder described Rodgers.

This constituted a forceful attempt at defamation, a labeling of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," stated he.

For somebody who values decorum and sets high importance in dealings being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, this was a further illustration of how unusual things have become at the club.

Desmond, the organization's most powerful figure, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the power to make all the major calls he pleases without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He never attend club annual meetings, dispatching his son, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, does interviews 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 club with private missives to news outlets, but nothing is heard in the open.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to be. And it's exactly what he went against when launching full thermonuclear on the manager on Monday.

The directive from the team is that Rodgers stepped down, but reading Desmond's invective, carefully, one must question why did he permit it to reach such a critical point?

If Rodgers is guilty of all of the things that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it's fair to inquire why had been the coach not removed?

Desmond has accused him of spinning information in public that did not tally with reality.

He claims his words "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the club and fuelled animosity towards members of the management and the board. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

What an extraordinary allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

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

To return to better days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised Desmond at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to him and, truly, to no one other.

This was Desmond who took the criticism when his returned occurred, post-Postecoglou.

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

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Gradually, the manager employed the charm, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an fragile peace with the fans turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

There was always - always - going to be a point when his ambition came in contact with Celtic's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with added intensity, recently. He publicly commented about the sluggish process Celtic conducted their transfer business, the endless waiting for prospects to be secured, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he spoke about the need for what he called "flexibility" in the transfer window. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the club splurged unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the £11m one signing, the £9m Adam Idah and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have cut it to date, with one already having departed - the manager pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in openly.

He set a bomb 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.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like Rodgers was playing a dangerous game.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly originated from a source associated with the organization. It said that the manager was harming the team with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his departure plan.

He desired not to be there and he was engineering his way out, that was the implication of the story.

Supporters were enraged. They then saw him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his directors wouldn't back his plans to achieve triumph.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was meant to hurt him, which it did. He called for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we heard nothing further about it.

At that point it was clear Rodgers was losing the backing of the people in charge.

The regular {gripes