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Just fifteen minutes following the club issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a brief five-paragraph statement, the bombshell landed, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

In an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

This individual he convinced to join the club when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and needed putting in their place. And the man he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for another club in the recent offseason.

Such was the severity of his takedown, the jaw-dropping return of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit 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, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Based on things he has expressed lately, he has been eager to get a new position. He will see this one as the ultimate opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such glory and adulation.

Will he give it up readily? It seems unlikely. The club might well reach out to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will serve as a balm for the time being.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

The new manager's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the most significant 'wow!' development was the brutal manner Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a forceful attempt at character assassination, a labeling of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "One individual's wish for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," wrote Desmond.

For a person who prizes decorum and places great store in dealings being conducted with discretion, if not complete privacy, here was a further example of how abnormal things have grown at the club.

The major figure, the organization's most powerful presence, operates in the background. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to take all the important calls he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not participate in team annual meetings, sending his son, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's slow to speak out.

He has been known on an rare moment to support the club with private missives to media organisations, but nothing is made in the open.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to be. And that's exactly what he went against when launching full thermonuclear on the manager on Monday.

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

Assuming the manager is culpable of all of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it's fair to inquire why had been the coach not removed?

Desmond has charged him of spinning things in open forums that did not tally with reality.

He says Rodgers' statements "played a part to a hostile environment around the team and encouraged hostility towards members of the management and the directors. Some of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

Such an extraordinary allegation, that is. Lawyers might be mobilising as we speak.

His Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Model Once More'

Looking back to better times, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager praised the shareholder at every turn, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Rodgers respected Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

It was Desmond who took the criticism when his returned occurred, after the previous manager.

This marked the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the returning hero for a few or, as other supporters would have put it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the lurch for Leicester.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Over time, the manager turned on the persuasion, delivered the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the supporters became a love-in once more.

There was always - consistently - going to be a point when his goals came in contact with Celtic's business model, however.

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired once more, with added intensity, over the last year. He publicly commented about the sluggish process the team conducted their player acquisitions, the endless waiting for targets to be landed, then missed, as was frequently the case as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he spoke about the need for what he called "agility" in the market. Supporters concurred with him.

Despite the organization splurged record amounts of funds in a calendar year on the £11m Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have performed well so far, with Idah since having departed - the manager pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he expressed this in public.

He planted a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent media briefing he would typically downplay it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, all are united, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was playing a risky strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that purportedly came 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 desired not to be there and he was arranging his exit, that was the implication of the article.

Supporters were angered. They then viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his honor because his board members wouldn't support his vision to achieve success.

The leak was damaging, naturally, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it did. He called for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we heard no more about it.

At that point it was plain Rodgers was losing the support of the individuals in charge.

The frequent {gripes