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Merely fifteen minutes following the club released the announcement of their manager's surprising departure via a perfunctory short statement, the bombshell arrived, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent fury.

Through an extensive statement, major shareholder Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

This individual he persuaded to join the club when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and required being in their place. Plus the man he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for another club in the recent offseason.

Such was the severity of Desmond's critique, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after much of his recent life was dedicated to an continuous circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

For now - and perhaps for a time. Considering comments he has said recently, he has been eager to get a new position. He will see this role as the ultimate chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

Will he relinquish it readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club could possibly make a call to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's return - as surreal as it is - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' moment was the harsh way the shareholder wrote of Rodgers.

It was a forceful endeavor at character assassination, a labeling of him as deceitful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," stated he.

For somebody who values decorum and sets high importance in business being done with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, here was another example of how abnormal things have grown at the club.

Desmond, the organization's dominant figure, moves in the background. The remote leader, the individual with the authority to make all the important calls he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He does not attend team annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's slow to speak out.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the organization with private messages to media organisations, but no statement is heard in the open.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to be. And that's exactly what he contradicted when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the club is that he stepped down, but reviewing Desmond's criticism, line by line, you have to wonder why he permit it to get such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is guilty of every one of the things that Desmond is alleging he's responsible for, then it's fair to inquire why was the coach not dismissed?

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

He says Rodgers' words "played a part to a hostile environment around the club and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the management and the board. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

Such an remarkable allegation, that is. Lawyers might be mobilising as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Strategy Again

Looking back to happier days, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers praised the shareholder at every turn, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Rodgers deferred to him and, really, to no one other.

This was the figure who took the heat when Rodgers' returned happened, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most controversial appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as some other Celtic fans would have described it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Over time, the manager turned on the persuasion, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the supporters became a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when Rodgers' ambition clashed with the club's business model, though.

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

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

Even when the club splurged record amounts of funds in a calendar year on the £11m Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have performed well so far, with one already having left - the manager pushed for increased resources and, oftentimes, 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 remarks at his next media briefing he would usually minimize it and almost contradict what he said.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, all are united, he'd claim. It appeared like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that purportedly came from a insider close to the organization. It claimed 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 present and he was engineering his exit, that was the tone of the story.

The fans were angered. They then saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his honor because his directors wouldn't support his vision to achieve success.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was meant to harm him, which it accomplished. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. If there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

By then it was clear the manager was losing the backing of the people in charge.

The regular {gripes