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Merely a quarter of an hour following the club issued the news of their manager's shock departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph statement, the bombshell arrived, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent anger.

In 551-words, key investor Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

The man he persuaded to join the club when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. And the figure he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the severity of Desmond's critique, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Two decades after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his recent life was dedicated to an unending circuit of appearances and the performance of all his past successes at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

Currently - and maybe for a time. Based on things he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been eager to get a new position. He'll see this role as the perfect opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he experienced such success and adulation.

Will he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. The club might well reach out to sound out their ex-manager, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the moment.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's return - however strange as it is - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' moment was the harsh manner Desmond described the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-preservation at the cost of others," wrote Desmond.

For a person who prizes propriety and places great store in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, here was another example of how abnormal situations have become at the club.

The major figure, the club's dominant presence, operates in the margins. The remote leader, the individual with the authority to take all the important calls he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He never attend team annual meetings, sending his offspring, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to support the club with private missives to media organisations, but nothing is heard in the open.

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

The directive from the club is that Rodgers resigned, but reviewing Desmond's invective, carefully, one must question why he permit it to get this far down the line?

If the manager is culpable of all of the things that Desmond is claiming he's responsible for, then it's fair to ask why had been the coach not dismissed?

He has accused him of distorting things in open forums that were inconsistent with the facts.

He says Rodgers' words "have contributed to a toxic environment around the club and fuelled hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the directors. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

Such an extraordinary allegation, indeed. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we speak.

His Aspirations Conflicted with Celtic's Model Again

To return to happier days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded the shareholder at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers respected him and, really, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who took the criticism when his comeback occurred, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most controversial hiring, the return of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as other supporters would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had his support. Gradually, the manager turned on the charm, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an fragile peace with the fans became a affectionate relationship once more.

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

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with bells on, over the last year. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow process the team conducted their transfer business, the interminable waiting for targets to be landed, then not landed, as was frequently the case as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he spoke about the necessity for what he termed "agility" in the market. The fans agreed with him.

Even when the organization spent record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the costly another player and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have cut it so far, with Idah already having departed - Rodgers pushed for more and more and, often, he did it in openly.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would typically minimize it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? 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 publication that allegedly came from a insider associated with the club. It said that the manager was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his exit strategy.

He desired not to be there and he was engineering his exit, this was the tone of the story.

Supporters were enraged. They now saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his directors did not back his plans to bring triumph.

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

By then it was plain Rodgers was losing the backing of the people in charge.

The frequent {gripes