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Just fifteen minutes after the club released the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' shock departure via a brief five-paragraph communication, the bombshell arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

Through an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

The man he persuaded to join the team when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and needed putting in their place. And the figure he once more relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of his critique, the jaw-dropping comeback of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Two decades after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his recent life was dedicated to an unending series of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Considering comments he has expressed lately, he has been eager to get a new position. He'll view this one as the perfect opportunity, a present from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Will he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly reach out to sound out Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the time being.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be set aside because the biggest 'wow!' moment was the brutal way Desmond wrote of the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a labeling of him as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the cost of others," wrote he.

For a person who values decorum and sets high importance in business being done with discretion, if not outright privacy, here was a further illustration of how abnormal things have become at the club.

Desmond, the organization's dominant presence, operates in the background. The remote leader, the individual with the authority to take all the major decisions he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not participate in club AGMs, sending his offspring, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about Celtic unless they're glowing in tone. And even then, he's reluctant to speak out.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the club with confidential missives to media organisations, but nothing is made in the open.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to remain. And that's just what he went against when going all-out attack on the manager on that day.

The official line from the team is that he stepped down, but reading his criticism, line by line, one must question why did he permit it to get this far down the line?

If the manager is guilty of all of the accusations that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why was the coach not removed?

Desmond has accused him of spinning information in public that were inconsistent with reality.

He says Rodgers' words "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the team and fuelled animosity towards members of the management and the directors. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unwarranted and unacceptable."

What an remarkable allegation, indeed. Lawyers might be mobilising as we speak.

His Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Model Once More'

Looking back to happier times, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers praised the shareholder at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers respected him and, really, to no one other.

This was Desmond who took the heat when his returned occurred, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the shameless one, who departed in the difficulty for Leicester.

The shareholder had his support. Over time, the manager turned on the persuasion, achieved the victories and the honors, and an fragile truce with the fans became a affectionate relationship again.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a moment when Rodgers' goals clashed with Celtic's business model, though.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired once more, with added intensity, over the last year. He spoke openly about the slow process the team conducted their player acquisitions, 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 termed "flexibility" in the market. Supporters agreed with him.

Even when the club spent record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the costly another player and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have performed well so far, with Idah already having left - Rodgers pushed for more and more and, often, he did it in public.

He set a bomb about a internal disunity inside the team and then walked away. When asked about his comments at his next media briefing he would usually downplay it and nearly reverse what he stated.

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

Earlier this year there was a report in a publication that purportedly originated from a insider close to the club. It claimed that the manager was damaging the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was orchestrating his departure plan.

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

Supporters were enraged. They then saw him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his board members did not 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 inquiry and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

At that point it was clear Rodgers was shedding the backing of the individuals in charge.

The frequent {gripes