BLACKBURN boss Graeme Souness today admitted he was highly relieved to be in the draw for the next round of the UEFA Cup.

Rovers nearly became victims of one of the greatest comebacks of all time in Bulgaria last night after appeared to be cruising through to the second round of the competition for the first time in their history.

A wonder goal from David Thompson and further strikes from Egil Ostenstad and Damien Duff had put them 3-0 up on the night and 4-1 ahead on aggregate.

But a rousing fightback by CSKA Sofia, who scored three times in a frantic finale to level the tie on aggregate, very nearly undermined all the visitors' previous good work before Rovers finally scraped through on the away goals rule to secure their place in next Tuesday's draw.

"We are in the next round, which is the most important thing, but my overriding feeling immediately after the final whistle was we'd made it a very easy game for 75 minutes but then in the last 15 minutes we contrived to make it a very difficult one for ourselves," said Souness.

"So it's very easy to forget just how well we did in that first 75 minutes.

"I'll have to wait and see how the goals look on the video, but at 3-0 we should have closed the door and played the game out.

"Instead, though, it turned out to be the same scenario as it was at Manchester City.

"But my players will have learnt something from that. To play in that atmosphere, although there was only 20,000 there, was very intimidating and certainly very different to the kind of atmospheres some of our younger players are used to.

"Lucas Neill, for example, is normally a cool customer but he got himself booked and nearly saw red because he wouldn't let it go so maybe the occasion and the atmosphere got to some of our players.

"So I was a wee bit angry but I've cooled down now because we will learn from this and, as long as we do that, then we'll keep going forward and keep getting better."

Despite travelling to Sofia knowing his side had to score to avoid another embarrassing first round elimination, Souness insists he was always confident his players were good enough to get the result they required aside from the nervy finale.

"I was always confident we could do it," said Souness.

"I felt in the first game we had a lot of the ball but didn't do a great deal with it so the scoreline flattered them in the first leg.

"So I was always optimistic we had enough to get through given the players we have in our team because we are always going to create chances whether we take them or not."

Meanwhile, the Rovers boss is hopeful Andy Cole will be fit to face Tottenham on Sunday even though the striker limped off with a groin injury towards the end of last night's tie.

"When they got their second goal we were just about to take him off but at that time he indicated he was fine and didn't want to come off," added Souness.

"But we are hoping it's not that bad. It's the kicking muscle on the top of his leg and we hope he'll still be available for Sunday."