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Just a quarter of an hour following Celtic issued the announcement of their manager's surprising departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph statement, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

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

This individual he convinced to come to the team when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and needed putting in their place. And the man he once more turned to after the previous manager left for another club in the recent offseason.

Such was the ferocity of Desmond's critique, the astonishing return of the former boss was almost an after-thought.

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after much 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 manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a time. Considering things he has said lately, O'Neill has been eager to secure a new position. He'll view this role as the perfect chance, a present from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such success and adulation.

Will he relinquish it readily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly make a call to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will serve as a balm for the time being.

All-out Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - as surreal as it is - can be set aside because the biggest 'wow!' development was the harsh manner Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

It was a forceful endeavor at defamation, a labeling of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the expense of everyone else," wrote Desmond.

For a person who values decorum and sets high importance in dealings being conducted with discretion, if not outright secrecy, this was another illustration of how unusual situations have become at Celtic.

The major figure, the organization's dominant presence, operates in the background. The remote leader, the one with the authority to take all the important decisions he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any open setting.

He never attend team annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to defend the club with private missives to media organisations, but nothing is heard in public.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to be. And that's exactly what he went against when going all-out attack on the manager on that day.

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

Assuming the manager is guilty of every one of the things that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to ask why had been the coach not removed?

He has charged him of spinning things in open forums that did not tally with reality.

He claims his words "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the club and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the executive team and the directors. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

Such an remarkable allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be preparing as we discuss.

His Aspirations Clashed with the Club's Strategy Again

To return to better times, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan respected him and, truly, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who took the heat when his returned occurred, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most divisive hiring, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other supporters would have described it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the wins and the honors, and an uneasy truce with the fans became a affectionate relationship once more.

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

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow way Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the endless waiting for targets to be secured, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he spoke about the necessity for what he termed "flexibility" in the transfer window. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the club splurged record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the £9m Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well to date, with one since having departed - the manager pushed for increased resources and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then walked away. When asked about his comments at his next news conference he would usually minimize it and nearly reverse what he said.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like he was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly came from a source close to the organization. It said that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his departure plan.

He didn't want to be there and he was engineering his exit, that was the implication of the story.

The fans were enraged. They now viewed him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his board members wouldn't support his plans to achieve success.

The leak was damaging, naturally, and it was meant to hurt Rodgers, which it accomplished. He called for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we heard nothing further about it.

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

The regular {gripes