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Merely a quarter of an hour after Celtic released the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the bombshell arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

Through an extensive statement, major shareholder Desmond savaged his old chum.

This individual he persuaded to join the team when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and needed putting back in a box. And the man he again relied on after the previous manager departed to another club in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the club, and after much of his recent life was dedicated to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at the team, O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a while. Considering comments he has said lately, O'Neill has been eager to get another job. He'll see this one as the ultimate opportunity, a present from the club's legacy, a return to the environment where he experienced such glory and praise.

Would he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly reach out to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a soothing presence for the time being.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - however strange as it is - can be set aside because the biggest 'wow!' development was the brutal way the shareholder described Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the expense of everyone else," wrote he.

For somebody who prizes decorum and places great store in dealings being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, this was another example of how abnormal things have become at the club.

Desmond, the organization's most powerful 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, instead. He seldom, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's slow to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to defend the club with confidential missives to media organisations, but nothing is heard in public.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to be. And it's exactly what he contradicted when launching full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the club is that he resigned, but reading his criticism, line by line, one must question why did he allow it to get such a critical point?

If Rodgers is culpable of every one of the things that the shareholder is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why was the manager not removed?

He has accused him of spinning things in public that were inconsistent with the facts.

He says Rodgers' words "have contributed to a hostile atmosphere around the team and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the management and the board. A portion of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

What an remarkable charge, indeed. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

His Aspirations Conflicted with Celtic's Strategy Again

Looking back to happier days, they were close, the two men. Rodgers praised the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to him and, really, to no one other.

It was Desmond who took the heat when his returned happened, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most controversial appointment, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other supporters would have described it, the return of the shameless one, who left them in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Over time, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, delivered the victories and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the supporters turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

There was always - always - going to be a moment when his ambition clashed with the club's operational approach, however.

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired once more, with bells on, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the sluggish process Celtic went about their transfer business, the interminable delay for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was frequently the case as far as he was believed.

Time and again he spoke about the necessity for what he called "agility" in the transfer window. The fans agreed with him.

Even when the organization splurged record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the £9m another player and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have cut it so far, with one already having left - Rodgers demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his subsequent news conference he would usually minimize it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It appeared like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly came from a source close to the organization. It said that Rodgers was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was managing his departure plan.

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

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

This disclosure was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to harm him, which it accomplished. He called for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we heard nothing further about it.

By then it was plain the manager was shedding the support of the people above him.

The regular {gripes