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Just fifteen minutes following the club issued the announcement of their manager's shock departure via a brief short communication, the howitzer arrived, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent anger.

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

This individual he persuaded to come to the team when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and required being back in a box. Plus the man he again turned to after the previous manager departed to Tottenham in the recent offseason.

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

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after a large part of his latter years was dedicated to an continuous circuit of appearances and the playing of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a time. Based on things he has expressed lately, he has been eager to secure another job. He'll see this one as the ultimate chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the environment where he experienced such glory and praise.

Would he relinquish it easily? You wouldn't have thought so. Celtic might well make a call to sound out their ex-manager, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the moment.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - however strange as it may be - can be set aside because the most significant 'wow!' moment was the brutal way Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a branding of him as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the cost of others," wrote Desmond.

For a person who values decorum and sets high importance in dealings being done with discretion, if not outright secrecy, this was another example of how unusual situations have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's most powerful presence, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to take all the major decisions he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not attend club annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about the team unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to defend the organization with confidential missives to media organisations, but no statement is made in public.

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

The directive from the club is that he stepped down, but reading his invective, line by line, one must question why he permit it to reach such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of every one of the accusations that the shareholder is claiming he's responsible for, then it's fair to ask why was the manager not removed?

Desmond has charged him of spinning information in public that did not tally with the facts.

He says Rodgers' statements "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the team and encouraged hostility towards members of the management and the board. Some of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

What an remarkable charge, indeed. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we speak.

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

To return to happier times, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at every turn, thanked him every chance. Brendan respected him and, really, to nobody else.

It was the figure who took the heat when Rodgers' returned occurred, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had his back. Gradually, the manager turned on the charm, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the supporters became a affectionate relationship again.

There was always - always - going to be a moment when Rodgers' ambition came in contact 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 way the team conducted their transfer business, the endless delay for targets to be landed, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was believed.

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

Despite the club splurged record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the £9m another player and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have performed well so far, with one since having departed - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, often, he did it in public.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity inside the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his next news conference he would usually minimize it and nearly contradict what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, all are united, he'd claim. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous game.

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly originated from a source close to the club. It said that Rodgers was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was managing his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be there and he was engineering his exit, this was the implication of the story.

The fans were enraged. They then viewed him as similar to a martyr who might be carried out on his honor because his directors did not back his plans to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was meant to harm him, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a probe then we heard nothing further about it.

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

The regular {gripes