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Just a quarter of an hour after the club released the announcement of their manager's surprising resignation via a brief short communication, the howitzer landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

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

This individual he convinced to join the club when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and needed putting back in a box. Plus the man he again relied on after the previous manager left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

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

Two decades after his exit from the club, and after a large part of his recent life was dedicated to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

Currently - and maybe for a while. Considering comments he has said recently, he has been eager to get another job. He will see this role as the perfect chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such success and praise.

Will he give it up easily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic could possibly reach out to contact Postecoglou, but O'Neill will serve as a soothing presence for the time being.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the biggest shocking moment was the brutal way Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded attempt at defamation, a labeling of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For somebody who prizes decorum and places great store in business being done with confidentiality, if not complete privacy, here was a further illustration of how abnormal things have grown at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's dominant figure, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the power 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 offspring, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about the team unless they're glowing in tone. And even then, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to defend the club with private missives to media organisations, but no statement is made in public.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to remain. And that's exactly what he contradicted when launching full thermonuclear on the manager on Monday.

The official line from the club is that Rodgers stepped down, but reviewing Desmond's criticism, line by line, you have to wonder why did he allow it to reach this far down the line?

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of every one of the accusations that Desmond is alleging he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to inquire why was the coach not dismissed?

He has accused him of distorting information in public that were inconsistent with reality.

He claims Rodgers' words "have contributed to a toxic environment around the club and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the board. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

Such an remarkable charge, indeed. Lawyers might be mobilising as we speak.

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

Looking back to happier days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to him and, really, to no one other.

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

It was the most controversial appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had his back. Over time, Rodgers employed the charm, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the fans became a affectionate relationship again.

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

It happened in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with bells on, over the last year. He publicly commented about the sluggish process Celtic went about their player acquisitions, the endless waiting for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he spoke about the need for what he termed "flexibility" in the transfer window. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the organization spent record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with Idah already having departed - Rodgers pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in public.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would typically downplay it and almost reverse what he said.

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

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly came from a source close to the club. It said that Rodgers was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his exit strategy.

He desired not to be there and he was arranging his exit, that was the tone of the article.

The fans were enraged. They now viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his directors wouldn't back his vision to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was meant to harm Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

At that point it was plain the manager was losing the support of the people above him.

The regular {gripes