• Chelsea manager not worried by Premier League form
• Difficult night awaits against in-form Bayer Leverkusen

André Villas-Boas spoke of “medium” and “high blocks” as he contemplated how to transform a team toiling in the Premier League into a side capable of securing passage into the knockout phase of the Champions League, though the mention that best summed up his current predicament centred more upon a block of the chopping variety. “When results like this happen, the head of the manager is called for execution,” he said. “But I’m not worried. I understand that.”

There have in reality been no concerted calls for Chelsea to dismiss a fifth manager in four years, though the Portuguese’s gallows humour revealed the paranoia that invariably grips this club and the fragility within his own setup as it endures early teething troubles. This team feels set-upon, almost beleaguered, at present.

It was with apt if grim timing that the Football Association duly confirmed Villas-Boas had been warned as to his future conduct and fined £12,000 for comments made about the referee Chris Foy after last month’s defeat to QPR, just as he was preparing to take training at the BayArena on Tuesday night. The Portuguese intends to wait on written reasoning before deciding whether or not to appeal against that sanction, but the fighter in him is unlikely to back down.

This campaign is becoming something of a slog. Throw in the continuing police and FA investigations into John Terry’s conduct and recent domestic toils, with three defeats in four league games leaving Manchester City a dot on the horizon in the title race, and the underlying sense of anxiety feels understandable. Life has at least proved more comfortable in Group

• Manchester United given three non-league draws since 2005
• FA insists strange draw statistic is merely an anomaly

Crawley Town fans would be forgiven for pinching themselves about their dream FA Cup fifth-round tie at Manchester United. What were the chances the non-league team would draw the biggest club in the land? Well, a lot higher than you might have thought, going by recent history.

At the final whistle of the Crawley game this month United will have played 28 FA Cup ties since January 2005, and three of them will have been against non‑league opposition: more than one in 10 of all their Cup ties in the past seven seasons. But even that does not tell the whole story. Digger has recorded how many non-league teams have been in each draw United have been involved in since 2005 and the chance of them getting non-league opposition has on three occasions been 4.76%, another three 3.2%, once 3.1%, once 12.7% and four times about 6.5%. Of these 12 draws since 2005 in which United’s ball has been in the pot alongside a non-league side,they have been drawn against one three times, or on 25% of occasions: Exeter City in 2005, Burton Albion in 2006 and Crawley this year.

An FA spokesman said: “The draw for the FA Cup is completely transparent and fair. Any statistical anomalies are just that.”

Is the anomaly statistically significant? You decide. But Digger senses that for the little guys, the dream United tie is a curiously recurring one.

United’s Delaware puzzle

When Manchester United’s owners, the Glazer family, paid off their £220m “payment-in-kind” loans last November, everyone wondered how. Ever since there have been rumours of involvement, denied by the club, of the Qatari royal family in the transaction. Now the annual returns of United’s UK parent companies, which should reveal any outside investment, have arrived at Companies House, yet their affairs are now obscured by an ever more complicated company structure.

There has been a change in United’s share structure, with the creation of new equity on exactly the same day as the PIK repayment. At the same time, the ultimate parent company was switched from Red Football Limited Partnership in Nevada to Red Football LLC in Delaware, the most secretive US state where disclosure of ownership is concerned. The company records of the newly formed Red Football LLC give no indication of who its officers or equity holders are. Moreover the Premier League has not been informed of any change in the company’s shareholdings, and any stakes over 10% would have to be declared under its