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Just a quarter of an hour following the club issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a brief short statement, the howitzer landed, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in obvious anger.

Through an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot Desmond savaged his old chum.

The man he convinced to join the club when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and needed putting back in a box. And the figure he again relied on after the previous manager departed to another club in the recent offseason.

Such was the severity of Desmond's takedown, the astonishing return of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Two decades after his departure from the club, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an continuous circuit of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his old hits at the team, Martin O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Based on comments he has said lately, O'Neill has been keen to get a new position. He will see this one as the perfect chance, a present from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such success and praise.

Would he give it up readily? It seems unlikely. The club might well make a call to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will serve as a balm for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's reappearance - as surreal as it is - can be set aside because the biggest 'wow!' development was the brutal manner the shareholder described the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of untruths, a spreader of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the expense of others," stated he.

For somebody who prizes propriety and sets high importance in dealings being conducted with discretion, if not complete secrecy, this was another example of how unusual 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 power to take all the important decisions he pleases without having the responsibility of justifying them in any open setting.

He does not attend team annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, his son, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's reluctant to speak out.

He has been known on an rare moment to defend the organization with private messages to news outlets, but no statement is made in the open.

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

The official line from the club is that Rodgers stepped down, but reading Desmond's invective, carefully, you have to wonder why he allow it to get such a critical point?

If Rodgers is culpable of every one of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the manager not removed?

Desmond has accused him of distorting things in open forums that did not tally with reality.

He says Rodgers' words "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the team and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the management and the directors. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

What an extraordinary charge, that is. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Clashed with Celtic's Model Again

To return to better days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him every chance. Rodgers respected him and, really, to nobody else.

This was the figure who took the criticism when his comeback occurred, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most controversial appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for a few or, as other supporters would have described it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had his back. Over time, the manager employed the charm, achieved the victories and the honors, and an uneasy truce with the supporters turned into a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a point when his ambition came in contact with Celtic's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened again, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish way Celtic went about their transfer business, the interminable waiting for targets to be secured, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

Time and again he spoke about the need for what he termed "flexibility" in the transfer window. Supporters concurred with him.

Even when the organization spent unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the £11m one signing, the £9m another player and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have cut it so far, with one already having departed - the manager demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He planted a bomb about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then walked away. When asked about his comments at his next news conference he would typically minimize it and nearly reverse what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, all are united, he'd claim. It appeared like Rodgers was playing a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that allegedly came from a source close to the organization. It said that the manager was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He desired not to be present and he was arranging his way out, that was the implication of the article.

Supporters were angered. They now saw him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his board members did not back his plans to achieve success.

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

At that point it was plain the manager was losing the support of the individuals above him.

The frequent {gripes