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Just a quarter of an hour after Celtic issued the announcement of their manager's shock resignation via a perfunctory short communication, the howitzer landed, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

Through 551-words, major shareholder Desmond savaged his old chum.

This individual he persuaded to come to the club when their rivals were gaining ground in that period and required being back in a box. And the man he once more relied on after the previous manager departed to Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

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

Currently - and perhaps for a time. Based on comments he has expressed lately, he has been keen 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 adulation.

Will he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club could possibly make a call to contact their ex-manager, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the moment.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - as surreal as it is - can be set aside because the biggest shocking development was the harsh manner Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a branding of him as deceitful, a source of untruths, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the cost of others," stated Desmond.

For somebody who prizes propriety and places great store in dealings being done with discretion, if not complete privacy, here was another illustration of how abnormal situations have grown at the club.

Desmond, the club's dominant figure, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the power to make all the important calls he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any open setting.

He never participate in team AGMs, dispatching his offspring, his son, in his place. He seldom, if ever, gives media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the organization with confidential missives to news outlets, but nothing is heard in public.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to be. And it's exactly what he contradicted when going all-out attack on the manager on that day.

The directive from the club is that Rodgers stepped down, but reading his invective, carefully, you have to wonder why he allow it to get such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of every one of the accusations that the shareholder is claiming he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why was the manager not removed?

Desmond has accused him of distorting information in open forums that did not tally with reality.

He says his words "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the club and fuelled animosity towards individuals of the management and the board. A portion of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unwarranted and improper."

Such an extraordinary allegation, indeed. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we speak.

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

To return to better times, they were tight, the two men. The manager praised Desmond at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers respected him and, really, to no one other.

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

It was the most divisive appointment, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had his back. Over time, Rodgers employed the charm, delivered the victories and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the supporters became a love-in again.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when his goals clashed with Celtic's operational approach, however.

It happened in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the sluggish way the team conducted their transfer business, the interminable delay 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 termed "agility" in the transfer window. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the club splurged record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the costly another player and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have cut it so far, with Idah already having left - the manager demanded increased resources and, often, he expressed this in public.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his subsequent news conference he would typically downplay it and nearly reverse what he said.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like Rodgers was playing a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly originated from a source close to the organization. It said that Rodgers was harming Celtic with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was managing his exit strategy.

He desired not to be there and he was engineering his exit, that was the tone of the story.

The fans were angered. They now saw him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his honor because his board members did not support his plans to bring triumph.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was meant to hurt him, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we learned no more about it.

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

The frequent {gripes