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Just a quarter of an hour following the club issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock departure via a perfunctory short communication, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

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

The man he convinced to come to the club when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and required being in their place. And the man he once more relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of his critique, the jaw-dropping comeback of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Two decades after his departure from the club, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his old hits at the team, Martin O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

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

Will he relinquish it easily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well reach out to contact their ex-manager, but O'Neill will serve as a balm for the moment.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the most significant 'wow!' moment was the brutal manner Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded attempt at defamation, a branding of him as untrustful, a source of untruths, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the cost of others," stated he.

For a person who values propriety and sets high importance in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not complete privacy, here was another illustration of how unusual things have grown at Celtic.

The major figure, the club's most powerful presence, moves in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the authority to take all the important decisions he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He never attend club AGMs, sending his offspring, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in nature. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

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

This is precisely how he's preferred it to remain. And it's just what he went against when launching all-out attack on Rodgers on that day.

The official line from the team is that he resigned, but reviewing his invective, line by line, one must question why did he allow it to reach such a critical point?

Assuming the manager is culpable of every one of the accusations that Desmond is alleging he's responsible for, then it's fair to ask why was the coach not removed?

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

He claims his words "played a part to a toxic atmosphere around the club and fuelled animosity towards members of the management and the board. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

Such an extraordinary allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

His Aspirations Conflicted with the Club's Model Once More'

To return to happier days, they were tight, the two men. The manager lauded Desmond at every turn, thanked him every chance. Rodgers deferred to Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

It was the figure who drew the heat when his returned happened, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other supporters would have described it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' back. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, delivered the wins and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the fans turned into a affectionate relationship again.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a point when his ambition clashed with the club's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened again, with bells on, recently. He spoke openly about the sluggish way Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the endless waiting for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was believed.

Time and again he stated about the necessity for what he called "agility" in the market. The fans agreed with him.

Even when the club splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well to date, with one already having left - the manager pushed for increased resources and, often, he did it in public.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity within the team and then walked away. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent media briefing he would usually minimize it and almost reverse what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like he was playing a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a report in a publication that allegedly originated from a insider associated with the organization. It said that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was managing his exit strategy.

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 sacrificial figure who might be removed on his honor because his directors wouldn't back his plans to achieve success.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to hurt him, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. If there was a examination then we heard nothing further about it.

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

The frequent {gripes