Back in March, Postecoglou said merely qualifying for the 2018 World Cup in Russia was a bare minimum expectation.

On Tuesday night the Socceroos struggled to break Japan down after they intentionally let Australia have possession of the ball after conceding in the first five minutes.

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Asensio's Screamer Vs FC Barcelona
In one of Real Madrid's most outstanding performances at the Camp Nou, Los Blancos beat FC Barcelona 3-1 in the Spanish Supercup. Real were leading 2-1 after Cristiano Ronaldo's 80th minute goal, but just before the final whistle, we sealed the win with this beautiful Marco Asensio strike.
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"We’re in a good position to qualify but that’s not what we’re about, we’re expecting to qualify, but we’re trying to improve every game,” Kruse said.

“Tonight probably wasn’t an indication of where we’re heading."

Kruse acknowledged the careless mistakes made in the first half against Japan after passes failed to reach their intended targets – more notably Trent Sainsbury’s intercepted pass which led to Genki Haraguchi’s opener.

"They’ve seen the way we play, maybe they’re a bit afraid of us, they know we’re a good team at passing the ball and tonight wasn’t the best from us,” he said.

“They stifled that from the way we were doing it, but in saying that, we should’ve done better with our passing.

“We were a bit sloppy and in the second half they rarely got out their half, so there’s positives and negatives to take out of it and we’ll learn from that and move forward.”

While Kruse maintained they were content with Australia’s standing on the qualifying table, he believed they could have taken more out of the 2-2 draw with Saudi Arabia last week and maintained heat wasn’t an excuse.

“They’re two of the most difficult away games in really tough conditions so Japan still have to do those two games as well,” he said.

“In saying that we don’t use it as an excuse, we have a lot of depth in the squad, so a lot of players can come in and play and tonight at home the best conditions we’ve played in so far and a good pitch, big crowd.

“It was a disappointing performance I think, we wanted to stamp our authority here and there was no other better opponent to do it against than Japan.”

Kruse also said he felt good physically despite the lack of game time he had with club side Bayer Leverkusen.

“Last time in Saudi I felt pretty good, I thought my fitness was quite good considering I hadn’t been playing a lot at club level,” he said.

“I was quite happy, but it’s quite demanding physically the games. It takes its tolls as well, but I’m sure with the second half we can perform like we did in the full 90 then I think we’ve won the game, so we’ll see what happens.”