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Just a quarter of an hour following the club issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the howitzer landed, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in obvious anger.

Through an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot 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 in their place. Plus the man he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the severity of Desmond's critique, the jaw-dropping comeback of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Two decades after his exit from the club, and after a large part of his recent life was given over to an continuous series of appearances and the playing of all his past successes at Celtic, O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a time. Based on comments he has said lately, he has been keen to get another job. He will see this role as the ultimate opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he experienced such success and praise.

Would he give it up easily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well reach out to contact Postecoglou, but O'Neill will serve as a soothing presence for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - however strange as it may be - can be set aside because the biggest 'wow!' development was the brutal way the shareholder described the former manager.

It was a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a branding of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," wrote Desmond.

For somebody who values propriety and sets high importance in business being conducted with discretion, if not complete privacy, this was another example of how abnormal things have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's most powerful presence, moves in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the power to take all the important decisions he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He does not participate in club annual meetings, dispatching his son, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's reluctant to communicate.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to support the organization with private missives to media organisations, but nothing is made in the open.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to be. And it's exactly what he went against when going all-out attack on the manager on Monday.

The official line from the team is that Rodgers stepped down, but reviewing Desmond's invective, carefully, you have to wonder why did he permit it to get this far down the line?

If the manager is culpable of all of the accusations that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it's fair to ask why had been the coach not dismissed?

Desmond has charged him of spinning things in public that were inconsistent with reality.

He says Rodgers' statements "have contributed to a hostile atmosphere around the team and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the directors. Some of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

Such an remarkable charge, indeed. Legal representatives might be preparing as we discuss.

His Ambition Conflicted with the Club's Strategy Once More'

Looking back to better days, they were close, the two men. Rodgers praised the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Rodgers respected Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who took the criticism when Rodgers' comeback happened, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most controversial hiring, the return of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' back. Gradually, Rodgers employed the persuasion, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the fans turned into a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a point when his ambition clashed with Celtic's business model, though.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it transpired again, with bells on, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow process the team conducted their transfer business, the endless waiting for targets 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 transfer window. Supporters concurred with him.

Even when the organization splurged record amounts of funds in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the £9m another player and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have cut it to date, with one already having departed - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, often, he did it in openly.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion within the club and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his next media briefing he would typically minimize it and almost contradict what he stated.

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

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a insider associated with the club. It claimed that the manager was damaging Celtic with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

Supporters were enraged. They now saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his board members wouldn't back his plans to bring success.

The leak was damaging, naturally, and it was meant to hurt him, which it accomplished. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. If there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

By then it was plain the manager was losing the backing of the individuals above him.

The regular {gripes