Albion are fast running out of opportunities to convince themselves as well as their fans this first Premier League campaign under Tony Mowbray can be rescued.

A close-but-no-cigar performance against Portsmouth left survival hopes smouldering but yet to really catch light as this “mini-season” of pre-Christmas games reaches its conclusion. 

The trip to third-from-bottom Sunderland next weekend now looms large with victory an imperative. It is a victory which became a little more difficult to imagine after the Baggies again produced the football which made the chances which should have brought three points yesterday only for the occasion to fall a little flat.

A deflected shot from Peter Crouch, in a rare threat on Scott Carson’s goal, was enough to secure Portsmouth a point after Jonathan Greening’s first strike for more than a year had prodded Albion towards a much-needed success.

As a result, Albion have one point from three of the five games against Premier League teams Mowbray’s players could reasonably imagine beating.

Sunderland and Manchester City conclude the sequence and winning one while not losing the other must be the minimum target before Christmas brings Chelsea at Stamford Bridge into view.

Recent history suggests Albion need to dig out another seven wins from the rest of their schedule to have any hope of staying up, a quest that will be all the more obtainable if the players remain certain in their own minds that it is not beyond them. 

But you sensed a lack of conviction about them yesterday which places a question mark over the team’s psychological barometer. 

Give Albion a fateful day and Portsmouth are never too far away – The Great Escape climax and Wembley FA Cup semi-final spring to mind – and while a mid-December league meeting may not have appeared to carry such significance, appearances can be deceptive. 

This was a big, big moment for Albion in 2008, the chance to get off the bottom of the table with a first victory in nine games.

Pompey’s change in manager and uncertain future direction, aggravated by their late return from a disappointing European trip because of travel difficulties, set them up nicely for a kill the Baggies desperately needed to execute. 

That their “prey” slipped away from The Hawthorns with a point despite being as off key as that  out-of-tune bugle player among their travelling fans represented a real wasted chance in a fixture list not exactly overflowing with similar opportunities. 

There’s nothing wrong with their spirit and there’s a lot right with their football. Albion didn’t win because Christ Brunt, who otherwise had a good day, and Ishmael Miller were unable to punish Portsmouth from the kind of opportunities the better teams take. But the movement which took both players into those positions – crisp flowing passing football – was exceptional and, dare I say, beyond the range of their fellow “promotees” Stoke and Hull.

But as these chances and games ebb away, the sense of a group of players beginning to feel a little forlorn about how this will all end up is unmistakeable.

Chairman Jeremy Peace is a notoriously stingy January investor who will make a cold, hard examination of Albion’s position before deciding on the club’s strategy for the transfer-market’s one-month window.

Don’t hold your breath. But with Miller’s forward strides brought to an abrupt halt by a knee injury yesterday, the team needs any help Peace feels Albion can afford. 

And oh for a top-drawer finisher. As Mowbray finished his last media interview after the game, he spun round just in time to watch Aston Villa’s Ashley Young putting Everton to the sword on TV. A rueful smile crossed his face in a moment which required no additional commentary.

Miller’s setback is rotten luck for the young striker because the difficulties he presented Sol Campbell and Sylvain Distin yesterday were a reminder of his recent advances at this level. 

Will he be a Premier League striker one day? The jury may still be out on that one but his prospects are already much more promising than three months ago and this injury hold-up is a setback Miller’s efforts did not deserve. 

Which returns us to the theme of big moments because this is one Luke Moore cannot let idle away. He has had to wait long and hard for the opportunity now beckoning and heard plenty of blunt Black Country carping about his muted contribution along the way. It’s fair to say a defining opportunity is upon him.

Is he going to be as good as so many thought he could be? Or will he drift away to face accusations of a talent unfulfilled. Good luck to him – because Albion’s survival could be the prize or the price.

It is a survival which should have looked more likely had this performance been properly rewarded. Greening’s 39th minute goal was no more than Albion’s captain deserved as he began to flourish in his new role as the most advanced of the five-man midfield.

He had already played a pivotal role in that wonderful four-man passing exchange which sent Brunt clear only for his finish to lack sufficient “bend” to swerve inside David James’s right-hand post.

But when Brunt smashed a ferocious 20-yard free-kick against the bar, Greening was perfectly placed to stroke home the rebound with a controlled half volley. 

Albion were in the ascendancy throughout the first half but could not find the killer second goal; indeed they have only managed to score more than once in two games this season and Portsmouth’s slight improvement after the break found an equaliser.

A missed tackle by Jonas Olsson on Sean Davis just outside the area was punished by Crouch’s 58th minute drive which flew up and over Carson thanks to a deflection of Abdoulaye Meite.

It could have been worse, it could have been better. Glen Johnson squandered a late chance, after some fortunate ricochets, to win the game but Albion were frequently on the edge of a winner too – most notably when Olsson, substitute Roman Bednar and James Morrison played Miller in for a chance he could not take cleanly.

By Martin Swain.