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Just fifteen minutes after the club released the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph statement, the bombshell arrived, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

In an extensive statement, key investor Desmond savaged his former ally.

This individual he convinced to join the team when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting in their place. Plus the man he once more turned to after the previous manager departed to another club in the recent offseason.

So intense was the severity of Desmond's takedown, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was practically an after-thought.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an unending circuit of appearances and the playing of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

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

Would he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well make a call to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

All-out Attempt at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it may be - can be set aside because the biggest 'wow!' development was the harsh way Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the expense of everyone else," wrote he.

For a person who values propriety and sets high importance in business being done with confidentiality, if not complete secrecy, here was a further illustration of how unusual situations have become at the club.

Desmond, the club's most powerful figure, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to make all the major decisions he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any public forum.

He never attend team annual meetings, dispatching his son, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's slow to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to defend the club with private missives to news outlets, but no statement is heard in public.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And that's just what he contradicted when launching all-out attack on Rodgers on that day.

The directive from the club is that Rodgers stepped down, but reading Desmond's criticism, carefully, one must question why he allow it to get such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of every one of the accusations that the shareholder is claiming he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the coach not dismissed?

Desmond has charged him of distorting things in open forums that did not tally with the facts.

He claims his statements "have contributed to a hostile atmosphere around the club and encouraged hostility towards members of the executive team and the board. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

What an remarkable allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

His Ambition Conflicted with the Club's Model Again

To return to better days, they were tight, the two men. The manager lauded Desmond at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to him and, really, to no one other.

This was Desmond who took the criticism when Rodgers' comeback occurred, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had his back. Over time, the manager turned on the charm, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the fans turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a point when Rodgers' goals came in contact with Celtic's business model, though.

It happened in his first incarnation and it happened again, with bells on, recently. Rodgers publicly commented about the sluggish process the team conducted their player acquisitions, the endless delay for prospects to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he stated about the necessity for what he termed "agility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Despite the organization spent unprecedented sums of funds in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the £9m Adam Idah and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have cut it so far, with one already having left - Rodgers pushed for more and more and, often, he did it in public.

He set a controversy about a internal disunity within the team and then walked away. When asked about his comments at his subsequent news conference he would typically downplay it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, all are united, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was playing a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that allegedly originated from a insider close to the organization. It claimed that Rodgers was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He desired not to be there and he was arranging his exit, this was the implication of the article.

Supporters were angered. They then viewed him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his honor because his board members wouldn't support his plans to bring success.

This disclosure was poisonous, of course, and it was intended to hurt him, which it did. He called for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. If there was a probe then we heard nothing further about it.

By then it was plain Rodgers was shedding the support of the people above him.

The frequent {gripes