Ricky Sbragia will not be surprised if he loses his job on Sunday. The Sunderland manager thought that his side had beaten the drop and improved his job prospects when Kenwyne Jones swept them into the lead in the second half at Fratton Park last night, but his team will face Chelsea knowing that they could be only 90 minutes away from the Coca-Cola Championship.

“You never know in this world,” Sbragia said. “We could win and I could be sacked and we could lose and I might be sacked.”

Nothing went right for Sbragia and his players after Jones’s 59th-minute goal. A catalogue of defensive mistakes and a high-octane second-half performance by a Portsmouth side who had nothing to play for except pride means that Sunderland’s season is going to the wire. The nightmare scenario that their supporters face involves the team losing to Chelsea, Hull City beating a probable second-string Manchester United side at the KC Stadium and Newcastle United beating Aston Villa at Villa Park.

“I won’t be asking for an update from the other games on Sunday,” Sbragia said. “I will just concentrate on what we have to do. We know it is going to be difficult but we can beat Chelsea — they might have their minds on the FA Cup Final.”

Sbragia must have been hoping that Portsmouth would not be in the mood last night either. Paul Hart’s team beat the drop on Saturday without kicking a ball after Newcastle United lost at home to Fulham and they almost took the lead in the fourth minute when Peter Crouch headed against a post.

Sunderland needed two points from their final two matches to ensure that they will be playing in the Barclays Premier League next season, but that was not as easy as it sounded for a team who had not won away this year despite spending more than £30 million on players last summer.

Steed Malbranque had two early chances to settle his side’s nerves but the French midfield player wasted both and Dean Whitehead could not find a way past Asmir Begovic, the Portsmouth goalkeeper, when he tried his luck from the edge of the penalty area. Begovic was making his debut in place of David James, who was sidelined with a shoulder and neck injury that cost him his record of playing in every minute of all of his side’s Premier League games this season. The 21-year-old did enough to suggest that he has a future at the club.

Begovic will be at Fratton Park next season but it remains to be seen how many of his team-mates will be. Sol Campbell and Kanu are two of the 17 first-team squad players who are out of contract or at the end of their loan deals this summer.

“We now have to be self-financing in terms of transfer dealings,” Peter Storrie, the executive chairman, said. “We are not alone as several clubs are in the same position, having been hit by the economic crisis.”

The credit crunch did not stop 1,300 Sunderland fans from making the 700-mile round trip from Wearside and they almost got the goal that their loyalty deserved on the stroke of half-time when a header by Jones hit a post after good work by Malbranque.

Their side did, however, take the lead against the run of play when Jones beat Begovic from close range after Calum Davenport had crossed from the right. Their fans were still celebrating when Portsmouth equalised a minute later. All it took was a flick on by Crouch and a ricochet off Grant Leadbitter for John Utaka to score his first goal of the season with a right-foot strike past Marton Fulop.

Television replays proved that Alan Wiley, the referee, blew his whistle and was about to award Portsmouth a penalty just before Utaka scored when Davenport pulled his shirt, but Sbragia had no complaints. “They would have probably scored the penalty anyway,” he said.

Worse was to follow for Sunderland nine minutes later when Anton Ferdinand failed to cut out a clearance by Begovic and Phil Bardsley slid the ball into his own goal under pressure from Utaka. Sbragia had his head in his hands when Armand Traoré beat Fulop two minutes before time.

Niall Quinn, the Sunderland chairman, went into the away dressing room before the kick-off last night to tell his players to stick together. They will need to do more than that to beat Chelsea on Sunday.

Portsmouth (4-3-1-2): A Begovic — G Johnson, S Campbell, S Distin, H Hreidarsson — H Mullins, S Davis, R Hughes (sub: A Traoré, 46min) — Kanu (sub: Y Kaboul 46) — P Crouch (sub: L Primus, 90), J Utaka. Substitutes not used: J Ashdown, D Nugent, A Basinas, N Belhadj. Booked: Utaka.

Sunderland (4-2-3-1): M Fulop — P Bardsley, C Davenport, A Ferdinand, D Collins — D Whitehead, T Tainio (sub: D Cissé, 80) — S Malbranque (sub: C Edwards, 54), K Richardson, G Leadbitter (sub: D Murphy, 85) — K Jones. Substitutes not used: N Colgan, A Reid, D Healy, P McShane.

Referee: A Wiley.