The home side started brightly on a chilly Tuesday night in east London, with fit-again Bobby Zamora's return to the side after missing the previous two games culminating in some bright attacking play in the opening period. The striker was proving a handful and was unlucky not to open the scoring in the 17th minute when he rounded David James and struck for goal - only to watch the ball agonisingly roll just wide.
That was to be as good as it got for the hosts. In contrast, Portsmouth grew in confidence as the game wore on and a solitary strike from distance by Niko Kranjcar just after the hour was to prove all that separated the sides. "It looked as if it was going to be a tight game," said Curbishley. "Portsmouth turned up and flooded the midfield. I can't complain about that, they have been playing 4-3-3, 4-5-1 all season.
"We obviously needed to score first. We had a great chance [through Zamora], we also had a couple of decent opportunities but we didn't take them. As the game wore on, Portsmouth got stronger, we got flatter and, considering what we are trying to fight for it, is a massive disappointment. One or two of them looked really tired again and it was just a flat performance in the second half.
"It may have been different if we had scored first but they did the threatening in the second half and when Kranjcar scored, he had already had a couple of opportunities before that where he had let some shots go. So, we are very down and disappointed in there." When asked about the contrast of this season's mid-table comfort with last season's desperate survival fight, the manager said he was not content for the team to try and just hang on for a tenth-place finish.
He added: "The opportunity has been there for us to push on - we haven't taken that. Tonight, I think we ran out of one or two ideas about how to break Portsmouth down. It is something we have got to think about. We have got five games left. We have got a really tough one away from home [at Bolton Wanderers] on Saturday - they are fighting for their lives and we have to do better than we did tonight.
"I'd like to at least stay tenth but we have got to win some games for that to happen. We are a bit up and down. We played ever so well at Everton, we played well for half a game up at Sunderland. We did well the first half today but after that we have fizzled out ... we have just played two or three games that we thought were winnable. We have got to definitely win some of the next five games because we won't stay where we are, the season will fizzle out and we will end on a downer. That is the last thing I want to do."
This weekend's trip to relegation-threatened Bolton could see some defensive changes with Curbishley claiming Matthew Upson "has got a chance", before adding: "He may well come back so we may lose one with Lucas Neill and we may gain one with Matty Upson." The captain suffered an ankle injury late in the game but continued until the final whistle as all three substitutes had been used. Like Freddie Ljungberg, Mark Noble was absent with a hamstring injury suffered last week but the manager said he was "pushing to play" and "we will see how he is on Saturday".