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Merely fifteen minutes after the club issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the howitzer landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

Through an extensive statement, key investor Dermot Desmond savaged his former ally.

The man he persuaded to join the club when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and required being in their place. Plus the figure he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

Such was the severity of Desmond's takedown, the jaw-dropping comeback of the former boss was almost an after-thought.

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an continuous circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at the team, Martin O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and perhaps for a while. Considering things he has expressed lately, he has been eager to get another job. He will see this one as the perfect opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he enjoyed such glory and adulation.

Will he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. Celtic could possibly make a call to contact Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' development was the brutal manner Desmond wrote of the former manager.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of untruths, a spreader of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the expense of others," stated he.

For somebody who prizes propriety and sets high importance in business being done with confidentiality, if not complete privacy, this was another illustration of how abnormal 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 make all the important decisions he pleases without having the obligation of justifying them in any open setting.

He never attend club annual meetings, dispatching 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 reluctant to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the organization with confidential messages to media organisations, but nothing is heard in public.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to remain. And it's exactly what he went against when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

The official line from the club is that he resigned, but reviewing his criticism, carefully, one must question why did he allow it to get this far down the line?

If the manager is culpable of all of the accusations that Desmond is claiming he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why was the manager not removed?

Desmond has accused him of distorting things in open forums that were inconsistent with reality.

He says Rodgers' words "played a part to a hostile environment around the club and fuelled animosity towards individuals of the executive team and the directors. A portion of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unwarranted and improper."

What an extraordinary charge, that is. Lawyers might be mobilising as we discuss.

His Ambition Conflicted with the Club's Strategy Once More'

Looking back to happier days, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Rodgers respected Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

This was the figure who took the heat when his returned occurred, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most controversial appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as other supporters would have put it, the arrival of the shameless one, who departed in the difficulty for Leicester.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Gradually, the manager turned on the persuasion, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the fans turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

There was always - consistently - going to be a moment when Rodgers' goals came in contact with Celtic's operational approach, however.

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with bells on, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow way Celtic went about their transfer business, the endless delay for targets to be secured, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he spoke about the necessity for what he termed "agility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the organization spent record amounts of money in a calendar year on the £11m Arne Engels, the £9m Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have cut it to date, with Idah since having left - the manager pushed for more and more and, often, he did it in openly.

He planted a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his subsequent media briefing he would typically downplay it and almost reverse what he said.

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

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly came from a insider close to the organization. It said that Rodgers 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 way out, this was the implication of the story.

The fans were angered. They then saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his honor because his directors wouldn't support his plans to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was meant to hurt Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

At that point it was plain the manager was losing the support of the people in charge.

The frequent {gripes