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Merely a quarter of an hour following Celtic issued the news of their manager's surprising departure via a brief short communication, the howitzer arrived, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious fury.

Through an extensive statement, key investor Dermot Desmond savaged his old chum.

The man he persuaded to come to the team when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and needed putting in their place. Plus the figure he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

Such was the ferocity of his takedown, the astonishing return of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Two decades after his departure from the club, and after much of his recent life was dedicated to an unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his past successes at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a while. Based on comments he has said lately, he has been keen to get another job. He'll see this one as the perfect opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he experienced such glory and praise.

Will he relinquish it readily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic might well reach out to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the time being.

All-out Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's reappearance - as surreal as it is - can be parked because the most significant 'wow!' development was the brutal manner the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For somebody who prizes propriety and places great store in business being conducted with discretion, if not complete privacy, here was another example of how unusual things have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's dominant presence, operates in the background. The remote leader, the one with the authority to make all the important calls he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He never attend club annual meetings, sending his son, his son, in his place. He seldom, if ever, gives media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

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

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

The directive from the team is that Rodgers resigned, but reading Desmond's criticism, carefully, one must question why did he allow it to reach such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of all of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it's fair to ask why was the coach not dismissed?

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

He claims Rodgers' words "played a part to a toxic environment around the club and fuelled hostility towards members of the management and the board. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unwarranted and unacceptable."

Such an extraordinary allegation, that is. Lawyers might be preparing as we discuss.

His Aspirations Clashed with the Club's Strategy Again

Looking back to happier times, they were close, the two men. The manager praised the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

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

This marked the most controversial appointment, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other supporters would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who left them in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had his support. Over time, Rodgers employed the charm, delivered the victories and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the fans became a love-in again.

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

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with bells on, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the sluggish process the team went about their transfer business, the endless delay for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was frequently the case as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he stated about the necessity for what he called "agility" in the market. Supporters concurred with him.

Even when the organization splurged record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the £11m one signing, the £9m another player and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have cut it so far, with one already having departed - Rodgers pushed for more and more and, often, he did it in openly.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity inside the team and then walked away. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would typically downplay it and nearly contradict what he said.

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

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that allegedly came from a source associated with 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.

Supporters were enraged. They then viewed him as similar to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his directors wouldn't support his vision to achieve success.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it did. He called for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

At that point it was clear Rodgers was losing the backing of the individuals above him.

The frequent {gripes