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Just fifteen minutes following the club issued the announcement of their manager's surprising departure via a perfunctory short statement, the howitzer landed, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious anger.

Through an extensive statement, key investor Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

The man he persuaded to join the team when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting in their place. And the figure he once more relied on after the previous manager left for another club in the recent offseason.

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

Two decades after his departure from the club, and after a large part of his recent life was given over to an unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his old hits at the team, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a time. Based on things he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been eager to get a new position. He'll see this one as the perfect opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he experienced such glory and adulation.

Would he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic might well make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be set aside because the most significant 'wow!' moment was the harsh manner Desmond described the former manager.

It was a forceful endeavor at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's wish for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," wrote Desmond.

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

Desmond, the club's dominant presence, moves in the background. The remote leader, the one with the power to take all the major calls he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any open setting.

He does not attend team annual meetings, sending his offspring, his son, in his place. He seldom, if ever, does interviews about the team unless they're hagiographic in nature. And still, he's slow to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to defend the organization with confidential missives to media organisations, but no statement is made in the open.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to remain. And it's just what he contradicted when launching full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the team is that he resigned, but reviewing his invective, line by line, one must question why he allow it to reach this far down the line?

If the manager is guilty of every one of the accusations that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to inquire why was the coach not dismissed?

He has charged him of spinning information in public that were inconsistent with reality.

He claims his statements "have contributed to a hostile environment around the club and fuelled hostility towards members of the executive team and the board. A portion of the abuse aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unwarranted and improper."

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

His Ambition Conflicted with the Club's Strategy Once More'

To return to better days, they were close, the two men. The manager lauded Desmond at every turn, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to him and, truly, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who drew the criticism when his returned happened, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most controversial hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as some other Celtic fans would have described it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the charm, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the fans became a love-in again.

There was always - consistently - going to be a moment when his goals clashed with Celtic's business model, though.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with bells on, over the last year. He spoke openly about the slow process Celtic went about their transfer business, the interminable delay for prospects to be landed, then not landed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was believed.

Time and again he stated about the need for what he called "agility" in the transfer window. Supporters agreed with him.

Despite the organization spent unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the £11m Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have cut it so far, with one 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 walked away. When asked about his comments at his next news conference he would typically downplay it and nearly contradict what he said.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous game.

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a source close to the club. It claimed 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 present and he was engineering his way out, this was the implication of the article.

Supporters were angered. They then viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his directors wouldn't support his plans to achieve success.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was meant to hurt him, which it accomplished. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

At that point it was plain Rodgers was losing the support of the individuals in charge.

The regular {gripes