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Merely fifteen minutes after Celtic released the news of their manager's surprising departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph statement, the howitzer landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

Through 551-words, major shareholder Dermot Desmond savaged his old chum.

The man he persuaded to come to the team when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. Plus the man he once more relied on after the previous manager left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the severity of Desmond's takedown, the jaw-dropping comeback of Martin O'Neill was almost an after-thought.

Two decades after his departure from the club, and after much of his recent life was given over to an continuous series 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 while. Considering comments he has said recently, O'Neill has been keen to get a new position. He will see this one as the ultimate chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he experienced such success and praise.

Will he relinquish it readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club could possibly reach out to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the moment.

'Full-blooded Effort at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the most significant 'wow!' development was the brutal manner Desmond described Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," wrote he.

For somebody who values propriety and places great store in dealings being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, this was a further illustration of how unusual situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the organization's dominant presence, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to take all the important calls he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He does not attend club annual meetings, sending his offspring, his son, in his place. He seldom, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's slow to speak out.

He has been known on an occasion or two to defend the club with confidential missives to media organisations, but no statement is made in public.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to remain. And that's exactly what he went against when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on that day.

The directive from the club is that Rodgers resigned, but reviewing his invective, carefully, you have to wonder why did he permit it to get this far down the line?

Assuming the manager is culpable of every one of the things that Desmond is claiming he's responsible for, then it's fair to inquire why had been the manager not dismissed?

He has accused him of spinning information in open forums that were inconsistent with reality.

He says Rodgers' statements "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the club and fuelled hostility towards members of the executive team and the board. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

What an remarkable allegation, that is. Lawyers might be mobilising as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Ambition Clashed with the Club's Strategy Again

To return to better times, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

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

This marked the most divisive appointment, the return of the prodigal son for a few or, as other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for another club.

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Gradually, Rodgers employed the charm, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the supporters turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when Rodgers' ambition clashed with the club's business model, though.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened again, with bells on, over the last year. He publicly commented about the slow way the team went about their player acquisitions, the interminable waiting for prospects to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he stated about the necessity for what he called "flexibility" in the transfer window. Supporters concurred with him.

Despite the club splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the £9m another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it to date, with one already having departed - the manager demanded increased resources and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his next media briefing he would typically downplay it and almost contradict what he stated.

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

Earlier this year there was a report in a publication that purportedly came from a insider associated with the club. It said that the manager was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was orchestrating his departure plan.

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

Supporters were enraged. They now viewed him as similar to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his directors wouldn't back his plans to bring triumph.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was meant to harm him, which it accomplished. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. Whether 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