The result leaves Roar without a goal after three games and bottom of Group E, facing a mountain to climb to qualify for the knockout stages.

After plenty of possession early, Roar spurned their best chance of the game on 26 minutes when Brett Holman’s miscued effort was saved.

“We’re very disappointed,” McKay said.

“Obviously Kashima are a very good team but we came here to win the game and we didn’t do that.

“I thought we played well in patches but we weren’t really clinical in front of goal.”

Roar faces the prospect of a busy schedule over the next two months, with three ACL games and A-League regular season games to play, plus finals.

“We’ve had a busy schedule already, leading into this we had to qualify for this group stage,” McKay said.

“We know how to handle that. We need to recover well and keep injuries to a minimum.

“We operate with a very small squad in Australia compared to the Japanese, Chinese and Korean teams, so we need to make sure everyone is on the park and playing well.

“If we can do that, hopefully we can get some points later on in this campaign.”

Brisbane are away to Adelaide United in the A-League on Sunday.