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Just fifteen minutes following the club released the news of their manager's surprising resignation via a brief short communication, the bombshell landed, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

In an extensive statement, key investor Dermot Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

The man he persuaded to come to the team when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and needed putting in their place. Plus the figure he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the recent offseason.

Such was the severity of his takedown, the astonishing return of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his recent life was dedicated to an unending circuit of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at the team, Martin O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a time. Based on things he has said recently, O'Neill has been keen to secure another job. He will view this one as the perfect chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the environment where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

Will he give it up easily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly reach out to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

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

This constituted a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the cost of others," wrote he.

For a person who prizes propriety and places great store in business being done with confidentiality, if not complete privacy, here was a further example of how unusual situations have grown at Celtic.

The major figure, the club's most powerful figure, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to make all the major calls he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any public forum.

He never participate in club AGMs, dispatching his offspring, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's reluctant to speak out.

He has been known on an rare moment to support the organization with private missives to news outlets, but nothing is made in the open.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to remain. And it's exactly what he went against when launching all-out attack on Rodgers on that day.

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

Assuming Rodgers is guilty of every one of the things that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why was the manager not dismissed?

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

He says his statements "have contributed to a toxic environment around the team and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the directors. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and unacceptable."

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

'Rodgers' Aspirations Conflicted with Celtic's Strategy Again

Looking back to better days, they were tight, the two men. The manager lauded Desmond at every turn, thanked him every chance. Rodgers respected him and, truly, to nobody else.

This was the figure who took the heat when Rodgers' comeback occurred, after the previous manager.

This marked the most controversial hiring, the return of the returning hero for a few or, as some other supporters would have described it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Over time, Rodgers employed the charm, delivered the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the fans turned into a love-in once more.

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

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired again, with bells on, over the last year. He spoke openly about the sluggish way Celtic conducted their transfer business, the interminable waiting for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was too often the situation as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he spoke about the necessity for what he termed "flexibility" in the transfer window. Supporters agreed with him.

Despite the club splurged unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the expensive Arne Engels, the £9m Adam Idah and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have cut it so far, with one since having left - the manager demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity 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.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, all are united, he'd claim. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a source close to the club. It said that the manager was damaging Celtic with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was managing his departure plan.

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

Supporters were angered. They now saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his board members did not support his vision to achieve triumph.

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

By then it was clear the manager was losing the support of the individuals in charge.

The regular {gripes