Portsmouth 2 Albion 2 - analysis

Officially this was the latest battle in the fight for survival.

But Saturday at Fratton Park felt more like 'phase one' of Albion's quest to bounce back to the Premier League.

While no-one at The Hawthorns will be seen hoisting the white flag of surrender just yet, most Baggies fans now accept that the game is up for now for their club as a top-flight side.

And since Stoke hammered a decisive nail into the coffin with a 2-0 win 10 days ago, the focus looks to have switched within the club from staying among the elite to rejoining them at the earliest opportunity.

In his comments last week, Tony Mowbray spoke of his own errors in the current campaign and spelled out a vision for the future.

And in his decisions before and during the entertaining draw at Fratton Park, Mowbray seemed to be plotting already for the huge challenge that will face his side when – 'if' no longer seems appropriate – the return to the Championship is rubber-stamped.

If Saturday's approach in Hampshire was a sign of things to come then the impressive army of travelling Baggies fans will have headed home cautiously optimistic.

Mowbray's men defended with commitment, closed down with energy and attacked with purpose.

In fact, it was tempting to ask where the qualities that deserved to earn them a second away win of the season have been for so much of a hugely disappointing assault on the Premier League.

Had supporters seen more of this on a few more occasions over the last eight months, they might well have been anticipating the final six matches of the season with a little more genuine optimism. Yet that is largely now a futile debate.

The damage has been done, the die cast and Albion's fate, for this year at least, looks to be sealed.

What counts now is what happens next. There is little mass appetite among the Albion faithful for a change of management.

But in the months ahead, supporters will demand clear evidence that Mowbray has learned from his mistakes of the last year, and proof that the players who are still around by the beginning of August are worthy of the manager's continued faith.

On Saturday, those brilliantly loyal supporters perhaps got the first hints of which players will form the foundations of Mowbray's bid for a second promotion.

Of course, nothing is set in stone yet. But it was impossible to watch the roller-coaster clash on the south coast without drawing a few conclusions about the way the manager is thinking.

Marc-Antoine Fortune led the attack. And, while he might not offer regular goals, Mowbray hopes to retain the Frenchman's workrate and movement for the next campaign.

While Fortune toiled, Jay Simpson remained on the bench. The on-loan Arsenal youngster has now made it clear that his future lies elsewhere.

And then there is Luke Moore. Long seen as the white elephant signing of the Mowbray era, the young striker reached a new low this weekend. Fit but left behind in the West Midlands, his Hawthorns prospects look bleak.

Despite a couple of decent performances a month or so ago, he looks to have burned his bridges.

In an ideal world, Mowbray would cash in on a couple of his creative midfielders to fund the purchase of a more combative figure in the summer.

So being left off the bench having travelled south would have triggered alarm bells for Filipe Teixeira and Kim Do-heon.

Ryan Donk was absent and the inconsistent young Dutchman looks homeward-bound when his season-long loan expires.

Marek Cech was missing too. A summer departure has been on the cards almost since day one for the Slovakia international, who has never properly settled.

If those selected on Saturday are to form the basis of next season's squad, they did their cause no harm against a Pompey side out of sorts but packed with seasoned internationals.

Gianni Zuiverloon offered fleeting reminders of his electric autumn form, Abdoulaye Meite returned to the fold to give his best performance in Baggies colours and Robert Koren and Chris Brunt were a constant threat from midfield.

And at the heart of it all was Graham Dorrans.

The young Scot might have known little of his maiden Premier League goal, but the inadvertent deflection off his backside was just rewards for another display of rich promise.

He dictated the tempo of a first half in which his team held the upper hand. Pompey's star man David James denied Koren smartly and James Morrison brilliantly while Brunt fired agonisingly wide.

But in the midst of the visitors' dominance Niko Kranjcar rattled the Albion woodwork from a short corner before Jermaine Pennant, the only real first-half threat to the Baggies, teed up Younes Kaboul to give Pompey an unlikely half-time lead.

Albion's defending was careless but Kaboul's finish was superb.

Mowbray's men, however, rallied and were level three minutes after the restart as James parried a Hayden Mullins backpass and saved a Morrison shot but could do nothing to keep out Greening's emphatic follow-up.

The equaliser triggered Pompey's best spell of the day but it was Albion who struck next as Brunt's fizzing free-kick spun off Dorrans and nestled in the bottom corner.

A second away win of the season looked on the cards, but only for three minutes.

And once Morrison had been penalised for a push, 20 yards from goal, there was little Albion could do to stop the equaliser.

Up stepped Kranjcar to launch a stunning right-footed shot into the top corner past Carson.

Both sides had half-chances in a final period which was so tense that Mowbray's assistant, Mark Venus, ended the match in the stands. He was invited to leave the dugout for debating a little too forcibly with the fourth official.

His frustration was born, presumably, from seeing the Baggies denied the victory that their football certainly warranted.

Because, in truth, the result had little bearing on a fate that was all-but sealed before they set foot in Hampshire.

After a dismal season, Albion are trying to look to the future.

And judging by Saturday, Mowbray will not stand on ceremony.

By Steve Madeley.