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Just fifteen minutes after Celtic released the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a brief five-paragraph statement, the howitzer landed, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

Through 551-words, key investor Dermot Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

This individual he convinced to come to the club when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting in their place. And the man he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the severity of Desmond's takedown, the astonishing return of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Two decades after his departure from the club, and after a large part of his recent life was given over to an continuous circuit of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his past successes at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

Currently - and perhaps for a time. Considering comments he has expressed lately, he has been keen to secure another job. He'll view this role as the ultimate opportunity, a present from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such success and adulation.

Would he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. The club might well reach out to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the moment.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' development was the brutal manner Desmond described the former manager.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; divisive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the expense of others," stated Desmond.

For somebody who prizes propriety and places great store in business being done with confidentiality, if not complete privacy, this was another illustration of how abnormal situations have grown at Celtic.

The major figure, the club's dominant presence, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to make all the important decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He does not participate in club annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to defend the club with confidential missives to news outlets, but nothing is made in public.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to be. And that's just what he contradicted when launching all-out attack on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the club is that he resigned, but reading his invective, line by line, one must question why he allow it to reach this far down the line?

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of all of the things that Desmond is claiming he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to inquire why had been the coach not removed?

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

He claims his words "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the club and fuelled animosity towards members of the management and the directors. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unjustified and improper."

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

His Ambition Clashed with the Club's Model Once More'

To return to happier times, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised Desmond at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

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

It was the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as some other supporters would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the lurch for another club.

Desmond had his support. Gradually, the manager turned on the persuasion, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the fans turned into a love-in again.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a moment when Rodgers' goals clashed with Celtic's business model, though.

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired again, with added intensity, recently. He spoke openly about the slow way Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

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

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the £11m Arne Engels, the £9m Adam Idah and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have performed well so far, with Idah already having departed - the manager pushed for more and more and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a controversy about a lack of cohesion within the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his next media briefing he would typically minimize it and almost contradict what he said.

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

Earlier this year there was a report in a publication that purportedly came from a insider close to the organization. It said that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

The fans were angered. They now saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his board members wouldn't support his vision to achieve triumph.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was meant to harm him, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. If there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

By then it was plain Rodgers was losing the backing of the people above him.

The regular {gripes