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Just fifteen minutes after Celtic released the announcement of their manager's shock departure via a brief five-paragraph communication, the bombshell landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent anger.

In an extensive statement, key investor Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

This individual he convinced to come to the team when Rangers were gaining ground in 2016 and required being back in a box. Plus the figure he once more relied on after the previous manager left for another club in the recent offseason.

Such was the severity of his critique, the jaw-dropping comeback of the former boss was almost an after-thought.

Two decades after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his past successes at the team, Martin O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and perhaps for a while. Based on comments he has expressed recently, he has been eager to get another job. He'll see this role as the perfect chance, a present from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such glory and praise.

Will he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly make a call to sound out Postecoglou, but the new appointment will serve as a balm for the time being.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

The new manager's return - however strange as it is - can be set aside because the biggest shocking moment was the brutal manner Desmond wrote of the former manager.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's wish for self-preservation at the cost of others," stated he.

For somebody who values decorum and places great store in business being done with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, this was another example of how abnormal things have grown at Celtic.

The major figure, the organization's dominant figure, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to take all the major calls he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not attend team AGMs, dispatching his son, Ross, instead. He seldom, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And still, he's slow to communicate.

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

It's exactly how he's wanted it to be. And it's exactly what he went against when launching full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

The official line from the club is that he stepped down, but reviewing Desmond's criticism, carefully, you have to wonder why did he allow it to reach such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of all of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the coach not removed?

He has charged him of spinning information in open forums that did not tally with the facts.

He says Rodgers' words "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the club and fuelled hostility towards members of the management and the directors. Some of the criticism directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and improper."

What an extraordinary allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

His Ambition Clashed with the Club's Strategy Again

Looking back to happier times, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers lauded Desmond at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Rodgers deferred to him and, truly, to no one other.

This was the figure who drew the heat when his returned occurred, after the previous manager.

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

Desmond had his back. Gradually, Rodgers employed the persuasion, achieved the wins and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the supporters turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

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

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened once more, with added intensity, recently. He publicly commented about the sluggish way the team conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for targets to be secured, then missed, as was too often the situation as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he spoke about the necessity for what he called "flexibility" in the market. Supporters concurred with him.

Despite the club splurged unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly another player and the £6m further acquisition - none of whom have performed well to date, with one since having departed - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then walked away. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent media briefing he would typically minimize it and nearly contradict what he stated.

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

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that purportedly originated from a source close to the organization. It said that the manager was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was managing his departure plan.

He didn't want to be present and he was engineering his exit, that was the implication of the article.

Supporters were angered. They now viewed him as similar to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his board members did not support his vision to bring success.

This disclosure was damaging, of course, and it was intended to harm him, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we learned no more about it.

At that point it was clear Rodgers was shedding the support of the individuals above him.

The regular {gripes