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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 landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent fury.

Through 551-words, key investor Dermot Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

The man he persuaded to come to the club when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and required being back in a box. And the figure he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the recent offseason.

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

Two decades after his departure from the club, and after a large part of his latter years was dedicated to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his past successes at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a while. Considering things he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been eager to get another job. He'll see this one as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the club's legacy, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such glory and praise.

Would he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. Celtic could possibly make a call to contact their ex-manager, but O'Neill will act as a soothing presence for the time being.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's return - as surreal as it may be - can be parked because the most significant shocking development was the brutal way Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

It was a forceful attempt at defamation, a labeling of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," stated he.

For somebody who prizes propriety and sets high importance in dealings being conducted with confidentiality, if not complete secrecy, here was another illustration of how unusual things have grown at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's dominant presence, operates in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the power to make all the important calls he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any public forum.

He does not attend team AGMs, dispatching his son, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in tone. And still, he's reluctant to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to defend the club with private missives to media organisations, but no statement is made in public.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to be. And it's just what he contradicted when going all-out attack on Rodgers on Monday.

The official line from the team is that he resigned, but reading Desmond's invective, carefully, you have to wonder why he allow it to reach such a critical point?

If Rodgers is guilty of all of the things that Desmond is alleging he's responsible for, then it's fair to inquire why was the coach not dismissed?

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

He claims his words "played a part to a hostile atmosphere around the club and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the executive team and the directors. Some of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and unacceptable."

Such an remarkable charge, indeed. Legal representatives might be preparing as we speak.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Conflicted with Celtic's Model Once More'

Looking back to better times, they were tight, the two men. The manager praised Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him every chance. Brendan deferred to Dermot and, really, to no one other.

This was Desmond who took the criticism when his comeback occurred, after the previous manager.

It was the most divisive hiring, the return of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as other supporters would have described it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had his support. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the charm, achieved the victories and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the supporters turned into a affectionate relationship again.

There was always - always - going to be a moment when his goals came in contact with Celtic's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired once more, with added intensity, over the last year. He spoke openly about the slow way Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he stated about the necessity for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. The fans agreed with him.

Despite the organization spent record amounts of money in a calendar year on the £11m Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the £6m further acquisition - all of whom have performed well to date, with one already having left - Rodgers pushed for more and more and, often, he expressed this in public.

He set a controversy about a internal disunity within the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his next news conference he would typically downplay it and almost reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like he was engaging in a dangerous game.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a source associated with the club. It said that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his open criticisms and that his true aim was managing his exit strategy.

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

Supporters were angered. They then viewed him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be carried out on his shield because his board members wouldn't back his vision to bring triumph.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was meant to harm him, which it did. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

By then it was clear the manager was losing the support of the people above him.

The regular {gripes