Pompey didn't play particularly badly at Field Mill - they just didn't play particularly well. And when you're chasing the tails of the sides in the top three, and others around you are grinding out wins, you should be playing particularly well.

We know Pompey are good enough to beat most teams in this league - the fact they have won at Plymouth and Northampton and done the double over Bristol Rovers proves that. But too often - and again at Mansfield - they have fallen some way below the standards fans know they can reach.

The frustrating yet heartening thing is that Pompey are not falling any further behind the top three - they're just not making up the ground. Had they turned two successive wins, against Stevenage and Accrington, into four, by beating Newport and Mansfield, they would now be third on goal difference - despite plenty of indifferent results in weeks before those back-to-back wins lifted hopes again.

For that reason a top three finish remains a possibility - but with many more lacklustre displays like the one at Mansfield, it will not stay so for much longer and the lottery of the play-offs will be their best hope.

They had their chances at Mansfield, yet didn't really deserve to win.

Marc McNulty ought to have fired them in front on 20 minutes when the referee gave a penalty for Daniel Alfei's foul on the Sheffield United loan man. It was a decent enough hit from 12 yards but Scott Shearer guessed right and saved it brilliantly.

Mansfield had Pompey rueing that miss when they took the lead as Matt Green show low beneath Ryan Fulton's drive from inside the box after a neat through-ball caught the centre of Pompey's defence cold.

Pompey were celebrating an equaliser just before the interval as home defender Ryan Tafazolli put a Ben Davies corner in his own net, without being under particular pressure from any attacker.

Once again Pompey had new hope - once again they failed to build on as a patchy second-half petered out with neither team able to take control, and neither deserving the win.

Mansfield would have been happy to end a three-game losing run while Pompey returned home knowing this was another two points lost.

The Stags' near neighbours Notts County bring Pompey's next test - at Fratton Park on Good Friday - and Paul Cook knows an Easter feast of attacking football, and more importantly a home win, is in order to get Pompey fans believing again.

Pompey: Fulton; Davies, Burgess, Webster, Stevens; Hollands, Doyle (c); Naismith (Chaplin 85), McNulty (McGurk 70), Bennett (Tollitt 67); Smith. Subs not used: Bass, Clarke, Barton, Evans

Referee: Carl Boyeson

Att: 3,980 (1,192 Pompey fans)

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