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Merely a quarter of an hour following the club issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a perfunctory short statement, the bombshell landed, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

In an extensive statement, major shareholder Desmond savaged his former ally.

The man he persuaded to come to the team when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting in their place. And the man he once more relied on after the previous manager left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

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

Twenty years after his departure from the organization, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an continuous circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his past successes at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a time. Considering comments he has said recently, he has been eager to get a new position. He'll view this role as the perfect chance, a present from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such glory and praise.

Will he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club could possibly reach out to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the moment.

All-out Effort 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 brutal manner the shareholder described Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the cost of others," wrote Desmond.

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

The major figure, the club's most powerful figure, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the power to make all the major decisions he wants without having the obligation of justifying them in any open setting.

He does not attend club annual meetings, sending his offspring, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks 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 organization with confidential missives to media organisations, but nothing is made in the open.

It's exactly how he's wanted it to be. And that's exactly what he contradicted when going all-out attack on Rodgers on that day.

The official line from the team is that Rodgers stepped down, but reading Desmond's invective, carefully, one must question why did he permit it to get such a critical point?

Assuming the manager is culpable of every one of the things that Desmond is claiming he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to ask why was the coach not dismissed?

Desmond has accused him of distorting information in public that did not tally with the facts.

He says his words "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the team and encouraged hostility towards members of the management and the directors. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unwarranted and improper."

What an extraordinary allegation, indeed. Lawyers might be preparing as we discuss.

His Ambition Clashed with the Club's Model Again

Looking back to better days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded the shareholder at every turn, thanked him every chance. Brendan respected him and, really, to no one other.

It was Desmond who took the heat when his comeback occurred, after the previous manager.

This marked the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the shameless one, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Over time, the manager employed the charm, delivered the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the fans turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

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

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired again, with added intensity, over the last year. He publicly commented about the sluggish process the team conducted their player acquisitions, the endless delay for targets to be landed, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

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

Despite the club splurged unprecedented sums of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly another player and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have cut it to date, with one since having left - the manager pushed for more and more and, often, he did it in openly.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then walked away. When asked about his comments at his subsequent news conference he would typically minimize it and almost contradict what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It appeared like Rodgers was engaging in a risky strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly came from a source close to the organization. It said that the manager was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

Supporters were enraged. They then saw him as akin to a martyr 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 meant to hurt him, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a probe 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