Tottenham Hotspur narrowly avoided joining Everton on the sidelines of the UEFA Cup on Thursday night as they stumbled to a nervous 1-1 draw with Polish minnows Wisla Krakow.

Tottenham came close to engineering their own demise by scoring an own goal on 58 minutes. However, Pawel Brozek came to the rescue with a goal against Krakow on 93 minutes, preventing a potentially costly penalty shootout.

The result saw Spurs progress 3-2 on aggregate and will have gone some way towards alleviating the pressure on Spurs coach Juande Ramos, who is under fire for a series of poor early-season performances by the London club.

“The important thing is qualification,” Ramos said after the game. “There was no euphoria at the end of the match, it was just a sense of getting the job done.”

Portsmouth also came perilously close to elimination from the UEFA Cup on Thursday evening after Portuguese club Guimaraes pulled back the two goal lead Pompey had brought into the second leg of their first round UEFA Cup tie.

With the aggregate score drawn on extra time, it took the brilliance of Peter Crouch to secure the win for Portsmouth, as the England striker scored twice with just minutes left on the clock.

Even Manchester City, the new magnates of Premiership football, failed to impress on Thursday evening as they ground out an uninspiring 2-1 win over Omonia Nicosia to progress to the second round of the 2008/2009 UEFA Cup.