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Just fifteen minutes after Celtic issued the announcement of their manager's shock departure via a brief short communication, the bombshell landed, courtesy of the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent anger.

Through an extensive statement, key investor Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

This individual he convinced to join the team when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and required being back in a box. And the man he once more turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for another club in the recent offseason.

So intense was the severity of Desmond's takedown, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was practically 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 appearances and the playing of all his past successes at the team, Martin O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a while. Considering comments he has said lately, O'Neill has been eager to get a new position. He'll see this one as the perfect opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he experienced such success and praise.

Will he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but the new appointment will serve as a balm for the moment.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

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

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of misinformation; divisive, misleading and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the expense of others," stated Desmond.

For somebody who values decorum and places great store in business being done with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, here was another illustration of how abnormal situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the organization's most powerful figure, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to make all the important decisions he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He never participate in club AGMs, dispatching his son, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in nature. And even then, he's slow to speak out.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to support the club with confidential messages to media organisations, but no statement is made in public.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to remain. And it's exactly what he went against when launching all-out attack on Rodgers on Monday.

The official line from the team is that Rodgers stepped down, but reading Desmond's invective, line by line, one must question why did he allow it to reach this far down the line?

If the manager is guilty of all of the things that Desmond is claiming he's responsible for, then it's fair to ask why had been the manager not removed?

Desmond has charged him of distorting information in open forums that did not tally with reality.

He claims his words "have contributed to a toxic environment around the club and fuelled animosity towards individuals of the executive team and the board. A portion of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

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

'Rodgers' Ambition Clashed with the Club's Model Once More'

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

This was Desmond who took the heat when Rodgers' returned happened, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive hiring, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the difficulty for another club.

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Over time, Rodgers employed the persuasion, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the supporters became a love-in once more.

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

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened again, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow way the team went about their transfer business, the interminable waiting for targets to be landed, then not landed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he spoke about the need for what he termed "agility" in the transfer window. The fans concurred with him.

Despite the organization splurged record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the costly another player and the £6m further acquisition - all of whom have cut it to date, with Idah already having left - the manager pushed for more and more and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He set a bomb about a internal disunity inside the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his next news conference he would usually minimize it and almost reverse what he said.

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

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that purportedly originated from a source associated with the organization. It said that the manager was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was managing his departure plan.

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

The fans were enraged. They now saw him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his honor because his board members did not support his vision to achieve triumph.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to hurt him, which it accomplished. He called for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. Whether there was a examination then we heard no more about it.

By then it was plain the manager was losing the support of the people in charge.

The regular {gripes