The Socceroos stumbled to their fourth consecutive draw on the road to Russia 2018, leaving the side precariously placed in third spot in Group B after six games.

Mathew Leckie gave Australia a half-time lead before Ahmed Yasin levelled on 76 minutes, with the Socceroos scrambling to hang on in the end for a draw.

“You want to win every game because of your performance and our performance didn’t warrant three points today,” Postecoglou told Fox Sports.

“Fair credit to (Iraq), they worked awfully hard. We didn’t really cope well particularly in the second half.

“In the end they probably got the point they deserved.”

Postecoglou continued: “It was a tough game. Especially in the second half we didn’t really cope with them being fairly direct.

“We weren’t strong enough in our defensive areas. We were continually scrambling for things and never really got a hold of the game.

“I thought in the first half, the last 20 minutes, we got good control of it.

“We probably needed that second goal and in the end they got one.”

Postecoglou a new-look 3-2-4-1 formation which he argued didn’t have a major say in the final result.

“At the end of the day, regardless of the system that we came up with, there was some contests where we were second best which caused all sorts of problems,” he said.

“I think just about every header in the defensive half we failed to clear and caused us some problems.

Postecoglou refused to play the challenging surface for the display, claiming his side lacked composure and bravery at times.

“(Iraq) playing direct helped them, there was a lot of second balls and scrambling,” he said.

“It’s not how we want to play our football. Having said that we had opportunities to get a hold of the game ourselves.

“Sometimes we lacked a bit of composure and a bit of bravery to keep playing our football.

“We had a good chance to go two up and that would’ve killed off the game.”

Australia are next in action against UAE in Sydney on Tuesday night.

“We’ll prepare as we always do and make sure we’re ready for it,” Postecoglou said.

“That’s four away games we’ve had, we’ve got three at home and they’re going to be the deciders for us in terms of qualification.”