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Eddie Howe, as expected, named an unchanged team from the one that beat Derby on Saturday with the only change coming on the bench where Marvin Bartley, available again after serving a three match ban, replaced David Edgar.
Ahead of the game the two teams, plus managers and coaching staff, provided a guard of honour for Graham Alexander who was then presented with an award by Barry Kilby. Having played a 1,000 games it was richly deserved but perhaps the timing was not quite right and led to a more carnival type of atmosphere rather than the tense atmosphere you would expect for a vital game.
When the game started the crowd were still in that mood and not really up for the battle against Pompey and the team also made a very slow start to the game.
We had most of the possession and most of the play, but in saying that we were hardly threatening the Portsmouth goal. Jay Rodriguez fired a header over the bar following a right wing cross and Chris McCann had a storming run, similar to the one at Derby only for goalkeeper Jamie Ashdown to save well and then recover to save a second shot from Danny Fox.
Meanwhile , little was seen of Portsmouth going forward. They seemed content to hold Burnley at arm's length and offered very little as an attacking force.
Nugent got in one effort that hardly troubled Jensen and that was about it from Pompey, but Burnley might just have had a penalty right on half time for handball. It looked a very good shout but referee Carl Boyeson, who was guilty of missing quite a bit in this game, waved the shouts away and we went in with the score 0-0.
There was no doubt that we needed to step things up in the second half but Pompey seemed hell bent on shortening the half as much as possible with some shocking and blatant time wasting that wasn't punished anything like as much as it should have been.
First there was Hermann Hreidarsson; we remember him from the incident at Fratton Park last season when his diving won them a ridiculous penalty. Referee Boyeson held the game up for some time to warn him against wasting time but then, incredibly, took no action against the player.
Just 11 minutes into the half he did yellow card goalkeeper Jamie Ashdown for just that. They were doing everything they could to spoil the game. Was it really like this with us when Steve Cotterill was manager? I thought not, but there are a lot who would say otherwise.
So bad was their game spoiling that I felt this was one occasion when we wouldn't come back should they score, and within a minute of the Ashdown card that's exactly what they did and no surprise when it was Nugent who hammered the ball into the top corner from the edge of the box after a ball across from the left.
To his credit, Nugent acknowledged the handful of Portsmouth fans in the cricket field stand but otherwise, respectfully, didn't celebrate the goal. That was appreciated by the Burnley fans who, later in the game when he was substituted, gave him the same warm applause as his manager had received ahead of the game.
Thankfully, and with just over quarter of an hour remaining, we did equalise. A ball out to Eagles on the right was then played to Tyrone Mears who slipped the ball back to Eagles who appeared put his shot into the top corner.
The goal has officially been credited to Eagles but Wade Elliott was immediately making a claim on it. It seems Wade got a touch to it and as he chased across to Eagles he was certainly letting him know.
Could we get that winner? Unfortunately not and we were grateful to Brian Jensen who came out to prevent Nugent getting his second and putting Portsmouth back in front with just over three minutes remaining.
We made changes and threw men forward. Nathan Delfouneso had the best opportunity but might have been better playing the ball across rather than shooting. Then, right at the end, following a corner, Greg Halford was able to head the ball over his own bar.
That was the last chance and we had to settle for a point with news coming through that both Nottingham Forest and Millwall had won but Leeds had been beaten at Crystal Palace.
There's still a chance. We're not favourites; that must surely be Forest now, but if we can get two more wins in those last two games it could be very interesting.
Unfortunately, every time we get close we seem to get a disappointing result. It's happened again and the last time we were in the top six was back in November after the home win against Derby.
Leeds next, and then Cardiff. They probably couldn't be much tougher but that might just be how we like it.
The teams were;
Burnley: Brian Jensen, Tyrone Mears, Michael Duff, Andre Bikey (Ross Wallace 87), Danny Fox, Jack Cork, Chris McCann (Nathan Delfouneso59), Wade Elliott, Chris Eagles, Jay Rodriguez, Chris Iwelumo (Steven Thompson 78). Subs not used: Lee Grant, Clarke Carlisle, Graham Alexander, Marvin Bartley.
Portsmouth: Jamie Ashdown, Ritchie De Laet (Carl Dickinson 76), Aaron Mokoena, Greg Halford, Hermann Hreidarsson, Jonathan Hogg (Danny Webber 80), Hayden Mullins, David Cotterill, Joel Ward, David Nugent (Nadir Ciftci 90+1), Nwankwo Kanu. Subs not used: Darryl Flahavan.
Yellow Cards: Jamie Ashdown, Hermann Hreidarsson, David Cotterill.
Referee: Carl Boyeson (East Yorkshire).
Attendance: 14,927.
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Footnotes
Brian Jensen played his 300th competitive game for Burnley in this game. Of those games, 297 have been starts with three substitute appearances, replacing Danny Coyne on all three occasions.
Michael Duff made his 200th league appearance for Burnley of which 184 have been starts and 16 substitute appearances.