Last night was somewhat surreal as the football on offer left my emotions and thoughts split three ways.

Firstly, there was the reality check being dished out in its coldest and most ruthless form at the Santiago Bernabeu. Secondly there was the shift into the overdrive of media sycophancy about Manchester United’s supposed ’World domination’ and the collective kissing of Alex Ferguson’s and Wayne Rooney’s rectal passages.

The media establishment were so far up the said asses, it was hard to see how the fumes and operating conditions would have allowed them to offer some objectivity.

It was only yesterday that all and sundry tried to portray Arsenal’s annihilation of Porto as not worthy of the Gunners, citing a supposedly tame dragon that was Porto. This third aspect really pissed me off.

Well, I thought I was pissed off until my wife, an ardent Chelsea supporter, came downstairs remonstrating about how she had been let down by AC Milan. I tried to convince her that Milan weren’t the team they used to be and that their contingent of senior citizens has passed their sell by date.

She was having none of that as clearly, her issue was that in the next week or so, she’d have to cope with the media barrage of ”Rooney this, Man United that, Ferguson this, Man United that”. The thought of Rooney, Ferguson and Man United being shoved down her throat by the media felt like it was going to make her physically sick.

I’ve got to tell you, that when even Chelsea fans complain about the media sycophancy towards Sir Red Nose and his charges, then something is clearly amiss.

Perhaps it’s just naive to expect that the establishment’s darling won’t get its customary treatment – and what, with just around 12 weeks to go to the World Cup – it’s even more naive to think that Wayne Rooney isn’t about to get the media endorsement to become a Knight of the Realm.

Of course, he’ll have to score the winning goal at the World Cup before Aunt Liz and Uncle Phil take the Royal train from Buckingham Palace to Carrington to personally endow the next Knight in waiting with the right to use Sir Wayne on his personal stationery.

I don’t know which is more scary – having to live with Sir Wayne for the next I don’t know how many years, or having to live with the vanity of Lady Coleen.

If you haven’t noticed yet, I was obviously tuned into Sky Sports 1 last night watching the events at the Santiago Bernabeu. Florentino Perez, the Real Madrid president has to be one of the biggest platinum idiots this side of the Mediterranean. I would have had sympathy for him under different circumstances, but Perez has form for breath-taking recklessness in spending an obscene amount of money to try and buy titles.

There can’t be any more spectacular ways to burn 260 million Euros – and what, for the sake of winning the Champions League in your own backyard? He tried it before and it didn’t work, and he should have heeded the famous Chinese saying that suggests that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

The truth is that Real Madrid has just become the perfect case study of the fact that there is no place for reckless and brazen cheque book management of football in this day and age.

Arsenal and Arsene Wenger have been constantly derided and ridiculed for supposedly being tight fisted and anal about not spending money they haven’t got. While this is going on, the recklessness of other comparable clubs like Man United and Liverpool have been hailed as the way forward – only to turn out to be basket cases of debt riddled clubs that are running on the fumes of history and reputation.

Chelsea and Manchester City on the other hand are play toys for sugar daddies who let’s face it, have to be candidates for the lifetime stupidity award for business acumen.

I hear the argument that these folks are billionaires so they must have done something right in business. Actually, they haven’t done anything that spectacular like build a software empire from scratch or something dramatic like that.

Abramovich benefitted from the Russian economic revolution in the 90s by being in the right place at the right time to pounce – and the Abu Dhabi Investment Corporation are pretty much sitting on top of an oil mine that allows them to print the money themselves.

Despite this, the reality that you can’t buy titles, history and tradition by throwing money at middle table mediocrity still doesn’t seem to sink in. Abramovich has already lost £700 million (and counting) – and all he has to show for it is 2 league titles and a few FA cups. If that’s a good return for £700 million,, then clearly we all need to fold our tents and move on.

The new trend seems to be that of shifting the obscene amount of debt from the liability column on the balance sheet to the equity column. Manchester City have followed this pathetic route – but it doesn’t mask the fact that it’s bad business. They’ll of course say they have the money – but if ever there was a definition of doping, then this has to be it.

Heads are rolling this week in the Spanish Capital, and heads will continue to role. One disadvantage for Arsenal of course is that Wenger will now become a target sought after like a nonsense as Madrid try to save face and justify burning the money they’ve burnt in the last year.

Football today couldn’t do any worse than take a leaf from the philosophy and approach of Arsenal’s Professor who holds a Masters degree in Economics. He masquerades day to day as the Arsenal manager, but in Wenger, football has a sage who balances the virtues of football with the discipline of business.

Wenger is the reason why Arsenal leads, and others follow. If the footballing world didn’t learn anything from Real Madrid’s exit out of the Champions league yesterday, then I suspect a bigger tragedy in football must and should happen for our game to be in a better place.