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Just fifteen minutes after the club issued the announcement of their manager's shock departure via a brief short communication, the bombshell landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in obvious fury.

Through an extensive statement, key investor Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

The man he persuaded to come to the team when their rivals were gaining ground in that period and needed putting back in a box. Plus the man he once more relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the recent offseason.

Such was the severity of his takedown, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after much of his recent life was dedicated to an unending series of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a while. Considering comments he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been eager to get a new position. He will see this one as the perfect chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the environment where he experienced such glory and adulation.

Would he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. Celtic could possibly reach out to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the moment.

All-out Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the biggest 'wow!' moment was the brutal manner Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

It was a forceful endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; divisive, misleading and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," wrote Desmond.

For somebody who prizes propriety and sets high importance in dealings being conducted with confidentiality, if not complete secrecy, here was a further example of how unusual things have become at Celtic.

The major figure, the organization's most powerful figure, operates in the background. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to make all the important decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He does not attend team 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 reluctant to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the organization with confidential messages to news outlets, but nothing is made in the open.

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

The official line from the team is that he resigned, but reviewing Desmond's criticism, carefully, you have to wonder why he allow it to get such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is guilty of all of the accusations that Desmond is claiming he's responsible for, then it's fair to ask why had been the coach not dismissed?

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

He claims his words "have contributed to a hostile environment around the team and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the management and the directors. Some of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unwarranted and unacceptable."

What an remarkable charge, indeed. Lawyers might be preparing as we discuss.

His Aspirations Clashed with the Club's Strategy Again

To return to better times, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded Desmond at every turn, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Brendan respected him and, truly, to nobody else.

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

It was the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other supporters would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the fans became a love-in once more.

There was always - always - going to be a point when his ambition clashed with the club's business model, though.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with bells on, over the last year. He spoke openly about the slow process Celtic conducted their transfer business, the endless delay for targets to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

Time and again he spoke about the necessity for what he called "flexibility" in the market. Supporters agreed with him.

Even when 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 - all of whom have performed well so far, with one already having left - Rodgers pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity inside the club and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent media briefing he would usually downplay it and almost reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It appeared like he was playing a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly came from a source close to the club. It claimed that Rodgers was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be present and he was engineering his way out, that was the tone of the story.

The fans were enraged. They then saw him as similar to a martyr who might be removed on his honor because his directors wouldn't support his vision to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to harm him, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be removed. If there was a examination then we heard no more about it.

At that point it was plain the manager was losing the backing of the people in charge.

The regular {gripes