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Merely fifteen minutes following the club released the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a perfunctory short statement, the bombshell landed, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent anger.

In an extensive statement, key investor Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

The man he convinced to join the club when their rivals were getting uppity in 2016 and required being in their place. Plus the man he once more relied on after the previous manager left for another club in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an continuous series of appearances and the playing of all his past successes at the team, Martin O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

Currently - and perhaps for a time. Considering comments he has expressed recently, O'Neill has been eager to get another job. He will view this role as the ultimate chance, a present from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

Will he relinquish it easily? It seems unlikely. Celtic could possibly make a call to sound out their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a soothing presence for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Character Assassination

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

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a labeling of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the expense of everyone else," wrote he.

For a person who prizes propriety and sets high importance in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, this was another illustration of how unusual situations have grown at Celtic.

The major figure, the club's dominant presence, moves in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the authority to make all the major decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He never participate in club annual meetings, sending his offspring, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to support the club with private missives to news outlets, but nothing is heard in public.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to be. And it's exactly what he went against when going all-out attack on Rodgers on that day.

The directive from the team is that he stepped down, but reading Desmond's criticism, line by line, one must question why he permit it to get this far down the line?

Assuming the manager is culpable of every one of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the coach not removed?

Desmond has accused him of spinning information in open forums that were inconsistent with the facts.

He says his statements "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the club and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the management and the board. Some of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unwarranted and improper."

What an extraordinary allegation, indeed. Lawyers might be mobilising as we speak.

'Rodgers' Ambition Conflicted with the Club's Strategy Once More'

Looking back to happier times, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager praised Desmond at every turn, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

This was Desmond who drew the criticism when his comeback happened, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most controversial hiring, the return of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Gradually, the manager employed the charm, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an fragile peace with the fans turned into a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a moment when his ambition clashed with the club's operational approach, though.

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened again, with added intensity, recently. He publicly commented about the slow process the team conducted their player acquisitions, the endless waiting for prospects to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the case 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.

Even when the organization spent unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly Adam Idah and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have performed well to date, with Idah since having departed - Rodgers pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He planted a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his subsequent media briefing he would usually minimize it and nearly contradict what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like he was engaging in a risky strategy.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that purportedly originated from a source close to the club. It said that Rodgers was damaging the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be there and he was engineering his way out, this was the tone of the article.

Supporters were enraged. They now saw him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his board members did not support his vision to achieve success.

This disclosure was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to hurt Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we heard no more about it.

By then it was clear Rodgers was losing the backing of the individuals above him.

The frequent {gripes