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Just fifteen minutes following the club issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock departure via a brief short communication, the howitzer arrived, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in obvious anger.

Through 551-words, major shareholder Desmond savaged his old chum.

This individual he convinced to come to the club when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and required being in their place. And the figure he once more relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of his takedown, the jaw-dropping return 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 dedicated to an unending circuit of appearances and the performance of all his past successes at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Based on comments he has expressed recently, he has been keen to get a new position. He will see this role as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

Will he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. Celtic could possibly make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the moment.

'Full-blooded Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be parked because the biggest shocking moment was the harsh manner the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

It was a full-blooded attempt at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the cost of others," stated Desmond.

For somebody who values decorum and sets high importance in dealings being done with discretion, if not outright secrecy, here was a further example of how unusual situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the organization's dominant presence, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to take all the major decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not attend team AGMs, sending his son, his son, in his place. He seldom, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's slow to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the club with confidential missives to media organisations, but nothing is made in the open.

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

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

If Rodgers is culpable of all of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why was the coach not removed?

Desmond has charged him of distorting things in open forums that did not tally with reality.

He claims Rodgers' statements "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the team and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the directors. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

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

His Ambition Clashed with the Club's Model Again

To return to happier times, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers lauded Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan respected Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

It was the figure who took the heat when his comeback occurred, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most controversial appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the lurch for Leicester.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Over time, Rodgers employed the persuasion, delivered the victories and the trophies, and an fragile peace with the supporters turned into a love-in once more.

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

This occurred in his initial tenure and it transpired once more, with bells on, over the last year. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish process the team went about their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for targets to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he stated about the need for what he termed "flexibility" in the transfer window. Supporters concurred with him.

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the £11m one signing, the costly another player and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have cut it to date, with Idah already having left - the manager demanded more and more and, often, he did it in public.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the team and then walked away. Upon questioning about his comments at his next news conference he would typically minimize it and nearly reverse what he said.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It appeared like he was playing a risky game.

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly came from a source close to the organization. It said that the manager was damaging the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be there and he was arranging his exit, this was the tone of the story.

The fans were angered. They now viewed him as similar to a martyr who might be carried out on his honor because his board members wouldn't back his vision to bring success.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was meant to harm him, which it did. He called for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be removed. If there was a probe then we heard nothing further about it.

At that point it was clear the manager was shedding the support of the individuals in charge.

The regular {gripes