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

Through 551-words, major shareholder Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

The man he convinced to come to the team when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. Plus the figure he again relied on after the previous manager left for another club in the recent offseason.

Such was the ferocity of his critique, the astonishing return of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

Two decades after his exit from the organization, and after much of his latter years was given over to an unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at the team, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Considering comments he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been eager to secure another job. He will see this one as the perfect chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such success and adulation.

Would he relinquish it easily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well reach out to sound out Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it is - can be parked because the most significant shocking development was the brutal way the shareholder described Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," wrote Desmond.

For somebody who values decorum and sets high importance in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not complete secrecy, here was another example of how unusual situations have become at the club.

Desmond, the club's most powerful presence, operates in the margins. The remote leader, the individual with the power to take all the important decisions he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He does not participate in club AGMs, sending his offspring, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about Celtic unless they're glowing in tone. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

There have been instances on an rare moment to defend the club with private messages to media organisations, but no statement is made in public.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to be. And it's just what he went against when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on that day.

The directive from the team is that he resigned, but reading Desmond's invective, carefully, you have to wonder why he permit it to reach such a critical point?

If Rodgers is guilty of every one of the things that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why was the manager not removed?

He has accused him of spinning things in public that did not tally with reality.

He says his statements "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the club and encouraged animosity towards members of the management and the directors. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

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

'Rodgers' Aspirations Conflicted with Celtic's Strategy Again

To return to better days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded Desmond at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan respected Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

This was the figure who took the criticism when Rodgers' returned happened, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most divisive appointment, the return of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other supporters would have described it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Gradually, the manager turned on the persuasion, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the fans turned into a love-in again.

There was always - consistently - going to be a point when his ambition clashed with the club's business model, however.

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened again, with added intensity, recently. He spoke openly about the sluggish process the team went about their player acquisitions, the endless delay for prospects to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he stated about the necessity for what he termed "agility" in the transfer window. Supporters agreed with him.

Even when the organization spent unprecedented sums of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well so far, with one since having departed - the manager demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity within the club and then walked away. When asked about his comments at his subsequent news conference he would usually downplay it and almost contradict what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, all are united, he'd claim. It appeared like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that allegedly came from a source close to the organization. It said that Rodgers was harming the team with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his departure plan.

He desired not to be there and he was engineering his exit, that was the implication of the article.

Supporters were angered. They then saw him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his directors did not support his vision to bring triumph.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was meant to hurt him, which it did. He called for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be removed. If there was a probe then we heard no more about it.

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

The frequent {gripes