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Merely fifteen minutes following the club issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a perfunctory short statement, the howitzer landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

In an extensive statement, major shareholder Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

This individual he convinced to join the team when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and needed putting back in a box. And the figure he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for another club in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of his takedown, the astonishing return of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

Two decades after his departure from the club, and after a large part of his recent life was dedicated to an unending circuit of appearances and the playing of all his past successes at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a while. Based on comments he has said lately, he has been keen to secure a new position. He'll see this one as the ultimate chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such glory and adulation.

Will he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. 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 Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the most significant shocking moment was the harsh manner the shareholder wrote of Rodgers.

It was a forceful attempt at defamation, a branding of him as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," wrote Desmond.

For a person who values decorum and sets high importance in dealings being done with discretion, if not outright secrecy, here was another example of how unusual things have grown at Celtic.

The major figure, the club's dominant figure, moves in the margins. The remote leader, the individual with the power to take all the important decisions he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any public forum.

He never participate in team AGMs, dispatching his offspring, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about the team unless they're hagiographic in nature. And still, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to support the club with confidential messages to media organisations, but no statement is made in public.

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

The official line from the club is that Rodgers stepped down, but reviewing Desmond's invective, line by line, you have to wonder why did he allow it to get such a critical point?

Assuming the manager is guilty of every one of the things that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it's fair to ask why was the coach not dismissed?

Desmond has accused him of spinning information in public that were inconsistent with the facts.

He claims Rodgers' statements "played a part to a hostile environment around the club and encouraged hostility towards members of the executive team and the directors. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

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

His Ambition Conflicted with Celtic's Strategy Again

Looking back to better times, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

This was Desmond who took the criticism when his returned happened, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most controversial appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for a few or, as other Celtic fans would have described it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the difficulty for Leicester.

The shareholder had his back. Over time, the manager employed the persuasion, delivered the victories and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the fans turned into a love-in again.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a point when his ambition clashed with Celtic's operational approach, though.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired once more, with added intensity, recently. He spoke openly about the sluggish way Celtic went about their transfer business, the endless waiting for prospects to be secured, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he stated about the need for what he called "flexibility" in the transfer window. The fans agreed with him.

Despite the club spent unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well to date, with one already having left - the manager demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

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

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It appeared like he was engaging in a risky game.

Earlier this year there was a report in a publication that allegedly came from a source close to the club. It claimed that Rodgers was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He desired not to be there and he was arranging his way out, this was the tone of the article.

The fans were enraged. They then viewed him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his honor because his directors did not back his plans to bring triumph.

The leak was damaging, naturally, and it was meant to hurt Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we heard no more about it.

By then it was plain Rodgers was losing the backing of the people above him.

The frequent {gripes