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Merely a quarter of an hour after Celtic released the announcement of their manager's shock departure via a brief five-paragraph statement, the bombshell arrived, from Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

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

This individual he persuaded to join the club when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting in their place. Plus the figure he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

Such was the ferocity of his takedown, the astonishing comeback of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after much of his latter years was given over to an unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

Currently - and maybe for a time. Considering things he has said lately, he has been eager to secure another job. He will see this role as the perfect opportunity, a present from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he experienced such success and adulation.

Will he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well reach out to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will serve as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the biggest 'wow!' development was the harsh way the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded attempt at defamation, a branding of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For somebody who prizes decorum and sets high importance in dealings being conducted with discretion, if not outright privacy, here was a further example of how abnormal things have become at the club.

The major figure, the club's dominant presence, operates in the background. The remote leader, the one with the authority to make all the major decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He does not participate in team annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, Ross, instead. He seldom, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're glowing in tone. And still, he's slow to speak out.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to support the club with confidential missives to news outlets, but nothing is made in the open.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to remain. And that's just what he contradicted when launching all-out attack on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the team is that he resigned, but reading Desmond's criticism, line by line, one must question why he permit it to reach such a critical point?

If Rodgers is culpable of all of the accusations that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it's fair to ask why had been the coach not removed?

He has charged him of distorting things in public that did not tally with reality.

He says his statements "played a part to a hostile environment around the club and fuelled animosity towards members of the executive team and the directors. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

Such 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, the two men. Rodgers praised Desmond at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

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

It was the most controversial hiring, the reappearance of the returning hero for a few or, as other supporters would have put it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had his support. Over time, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the wins and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the fans turned into a affectionate relationship again.

There was always - always - going to be a moment when Rodgers' goals came in contact with the club's operational approach, though.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it transpired again, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish way Celtic went about their player acquisitions, the endless waiting for targets to be landed, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he spoke about the necessity for what he called "flexibility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the £11m one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with one already having departed - Rodgers pushed for more and more and, often, he did it in openly.

He planted a bomb about a internal disunity inside the club and then walked away. Upon questioning about his comments at his subsequent media briefing he would usually minimize it and almost reverse what he said.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It looked like he was engaging in a risky strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that allegedly came from a source close to the club. It said that the manager was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be there and he was arranging his exit, this was the tone of the story.

The fans were enraged. They now viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his board members wouldn't support his plans to bring triumph.

The leak was damaging, naturally, and it was meant to harm Rodgers, which it did. He called for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. If there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

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

The regular {gripes