Glen Johnson admits Portsmouth "almost blew it" in their UEFA Cup clash with VitoriaGuimaraes last night.

Pompey fought back from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 and qualify for the group stages. Fullback Johnson said: "Obviously we made it hard for ourselves but we got the result in the end.

"We didn't start quickly enough. The home team knew they had to come and get a few goals and they were out of the box quickly. But we knew we were the better team out there so we had to be calm and just do what we had to do.

"At the end of the day we were 2-0 down but the situation was still the same. If we got one then we were going to go through. We had that in the back of our minds. We knew they couldn't play like that for the whole 90 minutes and we started the second half a lot better than the first. Then they started to sit back and look a bit worried and I think the boys picked up on that.

"We said at half-time, 'just keep trying to get down the flanks'.

"We felt positive I could beat their full-back and obviously I got by pretty much every time. It was nice to be involved in the goal as well."