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Merely fifteen minutes following the club released the announcement of their manager's surprising resignation via a brief short communication, the howitzer landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent anger.

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

The man he convinced to come to the team when Rangers were gaining ground in that period and required being back in a box. Plus the man he once more relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of his critique, the astonishing comeback of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after much of his recent life was dedicated to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the playing 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 lately, O'Neill 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 return to the place where he enjoyed such glory and adulation.

Will he give it up easily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly make a call to sound out their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the time being.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the most significant 'wow!' development was the brutal way Desmond wrote of the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's desire for self-interest 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 secrecy, this was another illustration of how abnormal situations have grown at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's dominant presence, operates in the background. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to make all the important calls he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He never attend club AGMs, dispatching his son, Ross, instead. He seldom, if ever, does interviews about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the club with private messages to news outlets, but nothing is heard in the open.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And that's exactly what he went against when launching full thermonuclear on the manager on Monday.

The official line from the club is that Rodgers resigned, but reviewing his invective, line by line, you have to wonder why did he allow it to reach this far down the line?

If Rodgers is guilty of every one of the things that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why had been the coach not removed?

He has accused him of distorting information in public that were inconsistent with reality.

He says his words "played a part to a hostile environment around the team and fuelled animosity towards individuals of the management and the board. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

What an remarkable allegation, that is. Lawyers might be preparing as we discuss.

His Aspirations Conflicted with the Club's Model Again

Looking back to happier times, they were close, the two men. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at every turn, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

It was the figure who drew the heat when his comeback happened, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most controversial appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Over time, Rodgers turned on the charm, delivered the victories and the honors, and an uneasy truce with the fans became a love-in once more.

There was always - always - going to be a point when his ambition came in contact with the club's business model, however.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened again, with bells on, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the sluggish way the team conducted their transfer business, the interminable waiting for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he spoke about the need for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. Supporters concurred with him.

Even when the club splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the costly another player and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have performed well so far, with one since having departed - the manager pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the club and then walked away. When asked about his comments at his next media briefing he would usually downplay it and almost contradict what he said.

Internal issues? No, no, all are united, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that purportedly originated from a insider close to the club. It said that the manager was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be there and he was arranging his exit, this was the tone of the story.

Supporters were angered. They now saw him as similar to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his directors did not back his plans to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to harm him, which it did. He called for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

At that point it was plain the manager was shedding the backing of the people in charge.

The frequent {gripes