As 0-0 draws go, Pompey and Oxford served up what I thought was a pretty good one. Pompey have played worse than that and won this season and if they'd nicked a goal during their second-half pressure, we'd all have gone home purring about a fifth win in seven and Oxford would have had little cause for complaint.

As it goes, I think we can still purr, though maybe only quietly. We have, after all, now won four and drawn three — and kept five clean sheets — in our past seven and, in that time, have put ourselves in with an outside chance, and it is still only that, of a late run to the play-offs.

Failure to see off an average Oxford side will be seen as a setback by some, which is fair enough. But it has to be set in the context of our recent run.

We could have well have lost to Tranmere; in fact most would agree our performance in that one warranted a return of no points. But we ended up with three points. Against Exeter a fortnight ago, we looked certain to have to settle for a point but snaffled all three. So when, against Oxford, we ended with one when our dominance of long spells of the game suggested three should have been possible, I don't think we can lose too much sleep.

It leaves us nine points off the team in seventh place, the last play-off spot — currently Newport County. With 13 games to go, that's a gap that can be closed. If Pompey can carry on this momentum in the same way they performed at the tail-end of 2014-15 after their ball started rolling, they have a chance of that seventh spot, or even fifth or sixth. It would still depend on some of the sides above them having a dip in form but in this dog-eat-dog division, that may not be asking too much.

A lot will depend on whether Matt Tubbs can continue the goalscoring form that has done so much to transform Pompey's fortunes in recent weeks. Against Michael Appleton's Oxford, he was both unlucky and off his best form. One superb first-half header would have tucked into the top corner but for an athletic save by United keeper Ryan Clarke; one clear second-half one-on-one chance was screwed wide of Clarke's far post without calling him into action.

There were other chances too. Ryan Taylor, who had an excellent game, winning more than his share of aerial balls, holding play up and bringing others into attacks very neatly throughout, almost bagged another late one in a penalty-box scramble but was outnumbered at the crucial moment.

Jed Wallace found the net but the bit of it the wrong side of the post in a second-half spell of pressure, while Dan Butler, another to deserve the MoM award more than Nigel Atangana, the man who got it, sent in a number of teasing crosses from the left that on another day might have fallen more cleanly for one of the forwards.

At the other end, Paul Jones had a quiet afternoon. Oxford were not without a sense of adventure — they played their part in a free-flowing and at-times fast-paced game but they had little to offer up front and their spells of possession, relatively few and far between, normally ended with Joe Devera, Paul Robinson or Ben Chorley — the latter surprisingly named captain despite his recent absence from the starting line-up - mopping up and clearing.

James Dunne, banned for ten bookings, was missed in midfield and his replacement Atangana was a strange choice of star man by the sponsors after a rather wild second half in which too many of his passes went astray, though he had shown some good touches under pressure earlier in the game. Danny Hollands stepped up a gear, I thought, in Dunne's absence, using the ball well and not being afraid to try to get Pompey moving forward from fairly deep positions.

Some afterwards — Guy Whittingham on Radio Solent among them — questioned why Andy Awford was not as adventurous at 0-0 as he had been at 2-0 against Tranmere. Possibly, it was because he had more to lose this time, but it's a fair point.

Craig Westcarr and Andy Barcham came on but for Tubbs and Josh Passley, and there was no great gung-ho approach to the latter stages. But you can't expect a gaggle of strikers to turn games around every time you need them to, and on the back of recent wins, I maintain that a draw from this one is no bad thing.

Northampton on Tuesday is big, though. They're three points ahead of the Blues and are second, to Pompey's first, in the last-six form table (they've taken 13 points from those past six, the Blues 14). Ricky Holmes is sure to be in their side and how Awford would enjoy seeing his defence keeping him quiet after the winger's mouthy exit from Fratton at the turn of the year.

If Pompey can get four points from this week's trips to Northampton and Accrington, that play-off push will still be very much on. Less than three from those two, and the end-of-season lottery will look much more like a party Pompey won't gatecrash.

But however those games go, it's worth thinking back just five weeks to January 24 and that game against Southend the chairman described as 'must-win'. Pompey didn't win, nor draw, Awford looked set for the axe, survived — and, until now at least, has prospered. Funny old game, isn't it, as much as it ever was? And who can really predict what will happen next … especially with a certain Wes Fogden now fit enough to be on the bench and surely not far from his first game of the season?

Pompey: Jones; Devera, Robinson, Chorley; Passley (Barcham 76), Atangana, Wallace, Hollands, Butler; Tubbs (Westcarr 81), Taylor. Subs not used: Poke, Webster, Ertl, Fogden, Chaplin.

Ref: Darren Deadman

Att: 16,355 (1,292 away fans)

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