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Merely a quarter of an hour after the club issued the announcement of their manager's surprising departure via a brief five-paragraph communication, the bombshell landed, courtesy of the major shareholder, with clear signs in obvious fury.

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

This individual he convinced to come to the team when their rivals were gaining ground 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 ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the astonishing comeback of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Two decades after his departure from the organization, and after a large part of his recent life was dedicated to an continuous circuit of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his past successes at the team, Martin O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

Currently - and maybe for a time. Based on comments he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been keen to secure another job. He'll view this one as the perfect chance, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such success and adulation.

Will he relinquish it readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club could possibly make a call to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

All-out Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the most significant 'wow!' moment was the harsh manner the shareholder described the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the cost of others," wrote Desmond.

For somebody who prizes decorum and places great store in business being done with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, this was another illustration of how abnormal situations have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the organization's dominant presence, moves in the background. The remote leader, the one with the authority to take all the important decisions he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He never attend team AGMs, sending his son, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's reluctant to speak out.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to defend the organization with confidential messages to news outlets, but nothing is heard in the open.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to be. And it's exactly what he contradicted when launching full thermonuclear on the manager on that day.

The official line from the team is that Rodgers stepped down, but reading his invective, carefully, one must question why he allow it to get this far down the line?

If the manager is culpable of all of the things that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the coach not dismissed?

Desmond has charged him of spinning information in public that were inconsistent with reality.

He says Rodgers' statements "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the team and fuelled animosity towards members of the executive team and the directors. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and improper."

Such an extraordinary charge, indeed. Lawyers might be mobilising as we discuss.

His Aspirations Clashed with Celtic's Strategy Once More'

To return to happier days, they were close, the two men. The manager praised Desmond at every turn, thanked him every chance. Rodgers deferred to him and, really, to nobody else.

This was Desmond who took the heat when his comeback happened, after the previous manager.

This marked the most controversial hiring, the return of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other supporters would have described it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the difficulty for another club.

Desmond had his back. Over time, the manager employed the persuasion, delivered the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the supporters turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

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

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish way the team conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he spoke about the necessity for what he called "agility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the organization spent record amounts of funds in a calendar year on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have performed well so far, with Idah already having left - the manager pushed for increased resources and, oftentimes, he did it in openly.

He planted a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then walked away. When asked about his comments at his subsequent media briefing he would typically downplay it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like he was playing a risky strategy.

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly originated from a insider close to the club. It said that Rodgers was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his departure plan.

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

Supporters were angered. They now viewed him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his directors wouldn't back his vision to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was damaging, of course, and it was meant to harm him, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

At that point it was plain Rodgers was losing the backing of the people above him.

The regular {gripes