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Just a quarter of an hour following Celtic released the announcement of their manager's shock departure via a perfunctory short communication, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

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

The man he convinced to join the club when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting in their place. Plus the man he once more relied on after the previous manager departed to another club in the recent offseason.

Such was the ferocity of his takedown, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an continuous circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a while. Based on things he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been eager to get another job. He will see this one as the ultimate chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the environment where he enjoyed such glory and adulation.

Will he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly reach out to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - however strange as it may be - can be set aside because the most significant 'wow!' moment was the harsh manner Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a forceful attempt at defamation, a labeling of him as untrustful, a source of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the expense of everyone else," wrote he.

For somebody who values propriety and places great store in dealings being done with discretion, if not outright privacy, this was another illustration of how unusual situations have grown at the club.

Desmond, the club's dominant figure, moves in the background. The remote leader, the one with the authority to make all the important decisions he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any public forum.

He never participate in club annual meetings, sending his son, his son, in his place. He seldom, if ever, does interviews about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's reluctant to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to defend the organization with confidential messages to news outlets, but nothing is made in the open.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to be. And that's exactly what he went against when going all-out attack on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the club is that he stepped down, but reading his invective, carefully, one must question why did he permit it to reach 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's fair to inquire why had been the manager not dismissed?

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

He claims his words "played a part to a toxic environment around the club and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the management and the directors. A portion of the abuse aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unwarranted and unacceptable."

Such an extraordinary charge, indeed. Lawyers might be mobilising as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Clashed with the Club's Model Again

To return to better times, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers lauded Desmond at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers respected him and, truly, to nobody else.

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

This marked the most divisive hiring, the return of the prodigal son for a few or, as other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Gradually, the manager turned on the persuasion, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the supporters became a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when his goals came in contact with Celtic's business model, however.

It happened in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the sluggish process the team went about their transfer business, the endless delay for prospects to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he stated about the need for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the organization spent unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the £11m one signing, the costly another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well so far, with Idah already having left - the manager pushed for increased resources and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity within the club and then distanced himself. When asked 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 say. It appeared like Rodgers was engaging in a risky strategy.

A few months back there was a report in a publication that purportedly came from a source close to the organization. It said that Rodgers was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his departure plan.

He didn't want to be present and he was engineering his exit, this was the tone of the article.

The fans were enraged. They then saw him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his directors wouldn't support his vision to bring success.

The leak was damaging, naturally, and it was meant to hurt Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. If there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

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

The frequent {gripes