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Merely fifteen minutes after the club released the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a brief five-paragraph communication, the howitzer landed, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

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

This individual he persuaded to join the club when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and required being in their place. And the figure he once more relied on after the previous manager departed to another club in the recent offseason.

Such was the severity of Desmond's critique, the astonishing return of Martin O'Neill was almost an after-thought.

Twenty years after his exit from the club, and after much of his recent life was dedicated to an continuous series of appearances and the performance of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a time. Considering things he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been eager to secure a new position. He will see this one as the perfect opportunity, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he experienced such glory and adulation.

Will he relinquish it readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well reach out to contact their ex-manager, but O'Neill will serve as a balm for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be set aside because the most significant shocking development was the harsh way Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a branding of him as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For somebody who values decorum and sets high importance in business being done with discretion, if not complete secrecy, this was a further example of how abnormal situations have grown at the club.

The major figure, the organization's dominant presence, moves in the margins. The remote leader, the individual with the power to take all the major decisions he pleases without having the obligation of justifying them in any open setting.

He never attend team AGMs, dispatching his offspring, his son, in his place. He seldom, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in tone. 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 made in the open.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And it's just what he contradicted when launching full thermonuclear on the manager on that day.

The directive from the club is that Rodgers stepped down, but reviewing Desmond's invective, line by line, you have to wonder why he permit it to reach this far down the line?

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of every one of the things that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it's fair to inquire why was the coach not dismissed?

Desmond has charged him of distorting things in open forums that did not tally with reality.

He says his words "played a part to a toxic environment around the club and fuelled animosity towards individuals of the executive team and the board. Some of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been completely unwarranted and unacceptable."

Such an remarkable allegation, indeed. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Strategy Again

Looking back to happier days, they were tight, the two men. The manager praised the shareholder at every turn, thanked him every chance. Brendan deferred to Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

This was Desmond who drew the criticism when his returned happened, after the previous manager.

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 departed in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Over time, Rodgers employed the persuasion, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the fans turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

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

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish way Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was frequently the case as far as he was believed.

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

Even when the club splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the £11m Arne Engels, the £9m Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well so far, with Idah already having departed - the manager demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He set a bomb about a internal disunity inside the club and then walked away. When asked about his comments at his subsequent media briefing he would typically downplay it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It appeared like Rodgers was engaging in a risky strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly came from a source close to the organization. It said that the manager was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

The fans were enraged. They now saw him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his directors did not back his vision to achieve success.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was meant to hurt Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

By then it was plain the manager was shedding the support of the people in charge.

The regular {gripes