Australia butchered a real chance of sealing a place in the 2018 World Cup after losing 2-0 away to Japan in Saitama on Thursday night.

It is now no longer in the Socceroos’ hands and the easiest way for them to qualify would be to beat Thailand and Japan would need to defeat or draw with Saudi Arabia in their last game.

As it stands Australia are level with the Saudis on 16 points but sit third on goal difference, so a heavy win against Thailand may well do it for the Socceroos.

Despite the Socceroos being unable to create clear-cut chances, Irvine was confident Australia could score heavily against Thailand.

“We very much have the firepower and capabilities of scoring goals in Melbourne,” Irvine said.

“There’s pressure on every game, last four games, if we didn’t win against UAE or Saudi Arabia it was make or break. This squad is getting used to handling pressure and it won’t affect us a bit when we come to Melbourne.

“People have got sick of us saying our approach doesn’t change but that’s all we can say, we have our style and system.

“We do believe in it, there will be times where it works but times like against Japan where it doesn’t.

“We need to find different ways to get through and to make those chances, be more clinical and I don’t think we will go kamikaze, our approach.”

The newly signed Hull City midfielder also admitted the squad was gutted after failing to hurt the Japanese.

“Everybody’s pretty gutted, big opportunity lost tonight, not just in the sense that we knew that three points tonight would’ve sealed us a place in Russia,” he conceded.

“It was another chance for us to test the football we’re trying to play against one of the best nations.

“We grew all the time in (the 2017 Confederations Cup) Russia and unfortunately against Japan it didn’t quite work for us.”