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Just a quarter of an hour after the club issued the announcement of their manager's shock departure via a brief five-paragraph statement, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent anger.

In 551-words, key investor Dermot Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

The man he convinced to join the team when Rangers were gaining ground in that period and needed putting in their place. Plus the man he again turned to after the previous manager left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the severity of his takedown, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was almost an after-thought.

Two decades after his departure from the organization, and after much of his latter years was given over to an continuous series of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his past successes at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a while. Based on comments he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been eager to secure a new position. He'll see this role as the perfect chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he enjoyed such success and praise.

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

All-out Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' development was the harsh manner Desmond described Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a branding of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," wrote he.

For a person who values decorum and places great store in dealings being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, this was another illustration of how abnormal situations have grown at the club.

Desmond, the club's dominant presence, operates in the margins. The remote leader, the individual with the power to take all the important decisions he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He never attend club annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's slow to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the organization with confidential messages to media organisations, but nothing is heard in public.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And it's exactly what he contradicted when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the club is that he stepped down, but reading Desmond's criticism, line by line, you have to wonder why did he allow it to reach such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of all of the accusations that Desmond is alleging he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to ask why was the coach not removed?

Desmond has accused him of spinning things in open forums that did not tally with reality.

He says Rodgers' words "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the club and fuelled animosity towards individuals of the executive team and the directors. Some of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

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

'Rodgers' Aspirations Clashed with Celtic's Model Again

To return to happier times, they were close, the two men. Rodgers praised the shareholder at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

It was Desmond who took the heat when his comeback occurred, after the previous manager.

This marked the most divisive appointment, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other supporters would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the lurch for another club.

Desmond had his support. Gradually, the manager turned on the charm, delivered the victories and the honors, and an fragile peace with the supporters turned into a love-in once more.

There was always - consistently - going to be a point when his goals came in contact with Celtic's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it transpired again, with bells on, over the last year. He publicly commented about the sluggish process Celtic went about their transfer business, the interminable waiting for targets to be secured, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

Time and again he spoke about the necessity for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. The fans agreed with him.

Even when the club splurged record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the £9m another player and the significant Auston Trusty - all of whom have performed well so far, with one already having departed - the manager demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his next media briefing he would typically downplay it and almost contradict what he said.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a risky game.

Earlier this year there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly came from a source close to the club. It claimed that Rodgers was damaging the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was managing his exit strategy.

He desired not to be there and he was arranging his way out, this was the implication of the story.

Supporters were enraged. They now viewed him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his directors wouldn't back his vision to achieve success.

This disclosure was damaging, of course, and it was intended to hurt him, which it accomplished. 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 people above him.

The regular {gripes