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Merely a quarter of an hour following the club released the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock departure via a perfunctory short communication, the howitzer landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

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

The man he convinced to join the team when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and needed putting back in a box. Plus the man he once more turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the recent offseason.

Such was the ferocity of Desmond's critique, the jaw-dropping return 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 unending series of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and perhaps for a time. Considering things he has said recently, he has been eager to secure another job. He'll view this one as the ultimate chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he experienced such success and praise.

Will he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly reach out to contact their ex-manager, but O'Neill will serve as a balm for the moment.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it may be - can be set aside because the biggest 'wow!' development was the harsh manner the shareholder described the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded attempt at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the cost of others," wrote Desmond.

For a person who values propriety and sets high importance in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, here was a further illustration of how unusual situations have grown at the club.

Desmond, the club's dominant presence, moves in the background. The remote leader, the individual with the authority to make all the major calls he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any public forum.

He never attend club annual meetings, dispatching his son, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about the team unless they're glowing in tone. And even then, he's slow to speak out.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to support the club with private missives to media organisations, but no statement is heard in public.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to remain. And it's exactly what he contradicted when going all-out attack on the manager on Monday.

The official line from the team is that Rodgers resigned, but reading Desmond's criticism, line by line, you have to wonder why did he allow it to get such a critical point?

Assuming the manager is guilty 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 things in public that did not tally with the facts.

He claims his statements "have contributed to a hostile environment around the team and fuelled animosity towards individuals of the management and the board. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unwarranted and improper."

What an extraordinary charge, indeed. Legal representatives might be preparing as we discuss.

His Ambition Conflicted with Celtic's Model Once More'

Looking back to happier days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him every chance. Brendan respected Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who drew the heat when his returned happened, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most controversial hiring, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other supporters would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Gradually, Rodgers employed the charm, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the fans turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when his goals clashed with Celtic's business model, however.

It happened in his first incarnation and it happened again, with bells on, over the last year. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow process the team went about their transfer business, the endless waiting for targets to be landed, then not landed, as was frequently the case as far as he was concerned.

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

Even when the club spent record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the £9m Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with one already having left - Rodgers pushed for increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion within the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his subsequent media briefing he would typically downplay it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It appeared like he was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a report in a publication that allegedly came from a source associated with the organization. It said that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his exit strategy.

He desired not to be present and he was arranging 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 carried out on his shield because his board members wouldn't back his plans to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was damaging, of course, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a examination then we heard no more about it.

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

The regular {gripes