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Merely a quarter of an hour after the club issued the announcement of their manager's surprising departure via a brief five-paragraph communication, the bombshell arrived, from Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

In 551-words, major shareholder Dermot Desmond savaged his old chum.

This individual he convinced to join the team when their rivals were gaining ground in that period and needed putting in their place. Plus the figure he once more turned to after the previous manager departed to another club in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the astonishing return of Martin O'Neill was almost an after-thought.

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

For now - and maybe for a time. Based on comments he has expressed lately, he has been eager to secure a new position. He will view this role as the ultimate chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he enjoyed such glory and praise.

Will he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. The club might well reach out to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will serve as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the most significant shocking moment was the harsh way Desmond described Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded attempt at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," stated he.

For a person who values propriety and places great store in dealings being done with discretion, if not complete privacy, here was a further illustration of how unusual things have grown at the club.

The major figure, the club's most powerful figure, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual 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 participate in team AGMs, dispatching his offspring, Ross, in his place. 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 news outlets, but nothing is heard in the open.

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

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

If Rodgers is guilty of all of the accusations that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it's fair to inquire why was the manager not removed?

Desmond has charged him of distorting information in public that were inconsistent with reality.

He claims Rodgers' statements "have contributed to a hostile environment around the team and encouraged animosity towards members of the management and the board. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and unacceptable."

What an remarkable allegation, that is. Lawyers might be preparing as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Strategy Again

To return to better days, they were close, the two men. The manager lauded Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers respected Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

This was Desmond who took the criticism when his comeback occurred, after the previous manager.

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

Desmond had Rodgers' back. Over time, Rodgers employed the persuasion, achieved the wins and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the supporters became a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a point when his goals came in contact with the club's business model, though.

It happened in his first incarnation and it happened again, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers publicly commented about the sluggish process Celtic went about their player acquisitions, the endless delay for prospects to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he spoke about the need for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. The fans agreed with him.

Even when the club spent record amounts of money in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have performed well to date, with Idah already having departed - the manager demanded more and more and, often, he did it in public.

He set a controversy about a internal disunity inside the club and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his next news conference he would typically minimize it and nearly reverse what he said.

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

Earlier this year there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly originated from a source associated with the organization. It said that the manager was damaging Celtic with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

Supporters were enraged. They now viewed him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his honor because his board members did not support his vision to bring triumph.

This disclosure was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to hurt him, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a examination then we heard no more about it.

By then it was clear Rodgers was shedding the backing of the people above him.

The regular {gripes