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Merely fifteen minutes after the club issued the news of their manager's surprising resignation via a brief short statement, the howitzer landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

Through 551-words, key investor Dermot Desmond savaged his former ally.

This individual he persuaded to come to the team when Rangers were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. And the man he once more relied on after the previous manager left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

Such was the ferocity of his critique, the astonishing comeback of the former boss was almost an after-thought.

Two decades after his exit from the organization, and after much of his latter years 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 dugout.

For now - and maybe for a time. Considering comments he has said recently, O'Neill has been eager to get a new position. He'll see this role as the perfect opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

Will he give it up easily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well reach out to sound out their ex-manager, but the new appointment will serve as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

The new manager's return - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' moment was the harsh manner Desmond described the former manager.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at character assassination, a branding of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the cost of others," wrote he.

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

Desmond, the club's dominant figure, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the power to take all the important decisions he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any public forum.

He does not attend club annual meetings, sending his son, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about the team unless they're glowing in tone. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the club with confidential messages to media organisations, but no statement is heard in the open.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to remain. And that's exactly what he contradicted when launching full thermonuclear on the manager on that day.

The official line from the team is that Rodgers stepped down, but reading his criticism, carefully, one must question why did he allow it to reach such a critical point?

Assuming the manager is culpable of all of the accusations that Desmond is claiming he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why was the coach not dismissed?

He has charged him of spinning things in public that did not tally with reality.

He claims Rodgers' words "played a part to a hostile environment around the team and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the management and the board. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been completely unwarranted and unacceptable."

Such an remarkable allegation, indeed. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

'Rodgers' Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Strategy Once More'

To return to happier days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to him and, truly, to no one other.

It was the figure who took the heat when Rodgers' returned occurred, after the previous manager.

This marked the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other Celtic fans would have described it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had his support. Over time, Rodgers turned on the charm, delivered the wins and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the fans became a love-in again.

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

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with added intensity, recently. He spoke openly about the slow process the team conducted their transfer business, the interminable delay for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

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

Despite the organization splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with Idah since having left - the manager demanded increased resources and, often, he did it in openly.

He set a controversy about a internal disunity within the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent media briefing he would usually minimize it and nearly reverse what he said.

Internal issues? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It appeared like he was playing a risky strategy.

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a source associated with the club. It claimed that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

Supporters were enraged. They now saw him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his honor because his board members did not support his plans to bring success.

This disclosure was damaging, of course, and it was meant to harm him, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we heard nothing further about it.

By then it was plain the manager was shedding the backing of the individuals above him.

The frequent {gripes