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Merely fifteen minutes after the club released the announcement of their manager's surprising departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the bombshell arrived, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

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

This individual he persuaded to join the club when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and needed putting back in a box. Plus the man he once more turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity 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 unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his past successes at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a time. Based on comments he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been eager to secure a new position. He will view this role as the perfect chance, a present from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he experienced such glory and adulation.

Will he give it up readily? It seems unlikely. The club might well reach out to contact their ex-manager, but O'Neill will serve as a soothing presence for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it is - can be parked because the most significant 'wow!' moment was the harsh manner Desmond described Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a branding of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of untruths, a spreader of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's wish for self-preservation at the expense of others," wrote he.

For a person who values decorum and places great store in business being done with discretion, if not complete secrecy, this was a further example of how unusual things have become at the club.

Desmond, the organization's dominant presence, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to make all the important calls he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any public forum.

He never attend club AGMs, dispatching his son, Ross, in his place. He seldom, if ever, gives media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in nature. And still, he's slow to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to defend the club with confidential missives to news outlets, but nothing is made in public.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And that's exactly what he contradicted when launching all-out attack on the manager on Monday.

The official line from the club is that Rodgers stepped down, but reading Desmond's criticism, line by line, one must question why he permit it to reach such a critical point?

If the manager is culpable of all of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to ask why was the coach not dismissed?

He has accused him of spinning things in open forums that were inconsistent with the facts.

He says Rodgers' words "played a part to a hostile environment around the team and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the board. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

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

'Rodgers' Ambition Conflicted with the Club's Model Again

Looking back to better times, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager praised Desmond at every turn, thanked him every chance. Rodgers deferred to him and, truly, to no one other.

It was Desmond who took the heat when his comeback occurred, after the previous manager.

It was the most controversial hiring, the reappearance of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have described it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Gradually, the manager turned on the charm, delivered the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the fans became a affectionate relationship once more.

There was always - consistently - going to be a point when Rodgers' ambition came in contact with Celtic's business model, however.

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with bells on, 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 frequently the case as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he spoke about the need for what he called "flexibility" in the transfer window. The fans agreed with him.

Even when the organization splurged record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the £11m one signing, the £9m Adam Idah and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have cut it to date, with Idah since having departed - Rodgers pushed for increased resources and, often, he did it in openly.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity within the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his subsequent news conference he would usually downplay it and almost reverse what he said.

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

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that allegedly originated from a source close to the club. It claimed that the manager was harming the team 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 exit, that was the tone of the article.

The fans were angered. They then saw him as similar to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his board members wouldn't back his vision to bring triumph.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was meant to harm him, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we heard nothing further about it.

By then it was clear Rodgers was losing the support of the people above him.

The regular {gripes