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Just a quarter of an hour following the club released the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph statement, the howitzer arrived, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent anger.

In 551-words, key investor Dermot Desmond savaged his old chum.

The man he persuaded to come to the club when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and required being back in a box. Plus the man he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for another club in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of his takedown, the astonishing return of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

Two decades after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was dedicated to an continuous series of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a time. Based on comments he has said lately, O'Neill has been eager to secure a new position. He'll see this one as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he experienced such glory and adulation.

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

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - however strange as it is - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' development was the harsh way Desmond described Rodgers.

It was a forceful attempt at character assassination, a labeling of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; divisive, misleading and unjustifiable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," wrote he.

For a person who values decorum and places great store in dealings being done with discretion, if not outright privacy, this was another illustration of how unusual things have grown at Celtic.

Desmond, the organization's dominant figure, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the power to make all the important decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of justifying them in any public forum.

He does not attend club AGMs, sending his offspring, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in nature. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the organization with confidential missives to media organisations, but no statement is heard in the open.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to be. And that's exactly what he went against when launching full thermonuclear on Rodgers on that day.

The directive from the club is that he stepped down, but reviewing Desmond's criticism, line by line, one must question why he permit it to get this far down the line?

If Rodgers is culpable of all of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to ask why was the coach not removed?

He has charged him of spinning things in public that did not tally with the facts.

He claims his statements "have contributed to a toxic environment around the team and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the management and the directors. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

What an remarkable charge, that is. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we discuss.

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

To return to better days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. The manager praised Desmond at every turn, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan respected him and, really, to nobody else.

This was Desmond who took the heat when his returned occurred, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other supporters would have described it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had his support. Over time, Rodgers employed the charm, achieved the wins and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the fans turned into a affectionate relationship again.

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

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with added intensity, recently. He spoke openly about the slow way the team conducted their transfer business, the interminable waiting for targets to be landed, then missed, as was too often the situation as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he spoke about the need for what he called "agility" in the market. Supporters agreed with him.

Even when the club splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have cut it so far, with Idah already having left - Rodgers pushed for more and more and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then walked away. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent media briefing he would typically downplay it and almost contradict what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, all are united, he'd say. It looked like he was playing a risky strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that allegedly originated from a insider associated with the club. It said that the manager was harming Celtic with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was managing his departure plan.

He desired not to be present and he was engineering his way out, this was the tone of the story.

The fans were enraged. They now viewed him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his honor because his board members did not back his plans to bring success.

The leak was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to hurt him, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. If there was a probe then we heard no more about it.

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

The regular {gripes