It was an afternoon of mixed emotions for Milan Lalkovic.
The Slovakian winger started against Walsall to make his first Pompey appearance since a defeat at Doncaster in January.
He was sent out on loan to Scottish side Ross County soon after, while an ankle injury kept him out of the opening few games of the current campaign.
But Lalkovic was disappointed that he could not inspire the Blues to victory against a side where he previously made almost 100 appearances.
He said: “I’m disappointed that we couldn’t win – especially against my former team.
“But I was happy to be back out there again after an unfortunate injury in training just before the start of the season.
"We weren’t able to get into the right areas and the ball was in the air too much."
“The manager put his trust in me by naming me in the team straight away after only returning on Thursday.
“Credit to Walsall because they defended really well and frustrated us, but I don’t think we were as good as we can be.
“We weren’t able to get into the right areas and the ball was in the air too much during the first half.
“It was a sloppy goal for us to concede, but there’s plenty more to come from us and at least we were able to get a point in the end.
“Walsall have completely changed from when I was there and they’re much more physical now, but it seemed to work for them.”
Pompey have collected one win, one draw and one defeat from their opening three games and travel to table-topping Wigan next Saturday.
Lalkovic said: “It’s a marathon not a sprint, so I’m sure we’ll work hard and be able to get back to winning ways pretty soon.
“It will be nice to get a full week in training and to build my fitness up a little bit more ahead of another big game at Wigan.”