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Just fifteen minutes following Celtic issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' shock departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph statement, 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.

The man he persuaded to come to the team when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. Plus the man he again turned to after the previous manager left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

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

Two decades after his departure from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an continuous circuit of appearances and the performance of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a while. Based on comments he has expressed lately, he has been eager to get another job. He will see this role as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he experienced such glory and praise.

Will he give it up readily? It seems unlikely. The club might well make a call to sound out their ex-manager, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the time being.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's reappearance - however strange as it may be - can be set aside because the most significant shocking development was the brutal manner Desmond described the former manager.

It was a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the cost of others," wrote he.

For a person who values propriety and sets high importance in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not complete privacy, here was a further illustration of how unusual situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the club's most powerful figure, operates in the background. The remote leader, the one with the power to make all the important calls he pleases without having the responsibility of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not attend club annual meetings, dispatching his son, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to defend the club with confidential missives to news outlets, but nothing is made in the open.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to remain. And it's just what he contradicted when launching all-out attack on the manager on that day.

The directive from the team is that Rodgers stepped down, but reviewing his invective, line by line, you have to wonder why he allow it to reach such a critical point?

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

Desmond has charged him of distorting information in open forums that were inconsistent with reality.

He says Rodgers' words "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the team and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the board. Some of the criticism directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

Such an extraordinary allegation, indeed. Legal representatives might be preparing as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Model Again

Looking back to better times, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at every turn, thanked him every chance. Brendan respected him and, truly, to nobody else.

This was Desmond who drew the heat when Rodgers' comeback occurred, after the previous manager.

This marked the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the difficulty for another club.

Desmond had his back. Gradually, the manager employed the persuasion, delivered the wins and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the supporters 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.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it transpired once more, with bells on, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the sluggish way the team went about their player acquisitions, the endless delay for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he spoke about the need for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the club splurged record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly another player and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have cut it to date, with one since having left - 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 team and then walked away. Upon questioning about his remarks at his next media briefing he would usually downplay it and nearly reverse what he said.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like Rodgers was engaging in a risky game.

Earlier this year there was a report in a publication that purportedly came from a source close to the club. It claimed that Rodgers was damaging the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was orchestrating his departure plan.

He desired not to be present and he was arranging his exit, this was the implication of the article.

Supporters were enraged. They then saw him as similar to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his board members wouldn't back his vision to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was intended to hurt him, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

At that point it was clear Rodgers was losing the support of the people above him.

The frequent {gripes