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Just fifteen minutes following Celtic released the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph statement, the bombshell landed, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

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

The man he persuaded to come to the club when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and needed putting back in a box. Plus the figure he again relied on after the previous manager left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

Such was the severity of Desmond's critique, the astonishing comeback of the former boss was practically an after-thought.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an unending circuit of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a time. Based on comments he has expressed lately, he has been keen to secure another job. He'll see this role as the ultimate chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such glory and praise.

Will he give it up easily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club could possibly make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the most significant 'wow!' moment was the harsh way the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a branding of him as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's wish for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," wrote he.

For a person who prizes propriety and places great store in business being conducted with discretion, if not complete privacy, this was a further illustration of how unusual situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the club's most powerful presence, moves in the background. The remote leader, the one with the power to take all the important decisions he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any public forum.

He does not participate in team annual meetings, dispatching his son, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's slow to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the club with confidential messages to news outlets, but no statement is heard in the open.

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

The official line from the team is that he resigned, but reviewing his invective, line by line, one must question why he permit it to reach this far down the line?

Assuming the manager is guilty of all of the things that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to inquire why was the manager not removed?

Desmond has accused him of spinning information in open forums that did not tally with the facts.

He says his statements "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the team and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the management and the directors. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unwarranted and improper."

Such an extraordinary allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we speak.

His Ambition Conflicted with Celtic's Model Again

Looking back to better times, they were close, the two men. The manager lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him every chance. Rodgers respected him and, really, to no one other.

It was Desmond who drew the heat when his returned happened, after the previous manager.

This marked the most controversial appointment, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have described it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for another club.

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Gradually, the manager employed the charm, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the fans became a affectionate relationship again.

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

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow process the team went about their player acquisitions, the endless delay for prospects to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

Time and again he stated about the necessity for what he termed "agility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the organization spent record amounts of funds in a calendar year on the £11m Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have performed well to date, with one already having departed - the manager pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He planted a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the team and then walked away. Upon questioning about his comments at his subsequent news conference he would typically downplay it and almost contradict what he said.

Internal issues? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like Rodgers was engaging in a risky strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a source associated with the organization. It said that the manager was damaging Celtic with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his departure plan.

He desired not to be there and he was arranging his way out, this was the implication of the article.

The fans were angered. They now viewed him as similar to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his board members did not support his plans to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to harm him, which it accomplished. He called for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we heard no more about it.

By then it was plain Rodgers was losing the support of the individuals in charge.

The frequent {gripes