McDonald's barren run in a Socceroos shirt has now stretched to 12 matches and the pressure is building after he missed a couple of excellent chances in Wednesday's 2-0 win over Bahrain in Sydney.

The diminutive striker, who has been a huge success in Scotland, had one bad moment in particular in the first half of the Bahrain game. A looping through ball from Brett Holman put him in acres of space with only the keeper to beat, but he shot early and over. Verbeek said the luck had just not fallen McDonald's way.

"He was there at the right moment, he was not sharp. He was very unlucky the first half, if he knew he was that free, the position was fantastic, the ball from Holman was fantastic, but his touch is not good, that was unlucky," said Verbeek.

McDonald then had an excellent chance to put Harry Kewell through on goal in the second half but failed to see him on the left, instead trying to thread a pass on the right.

But Verbeek is not concerned about McDonald's failure to break his Socceroos maiden, saying that the 25-year-old's club record speaks for itself and he has plenty of time to find his goalscoring touch.

"He will always score goals, he will always be an interesting player for us. He's still a good age. I'm not worried about Scotty," Verbeek said.

"We all know that a striker likes to score goals, especially if he hasn't scored goals. But the moment will come. Maybe he saves his goals for the upcoming months and maybe the World Cup."

However, McDonald may have his work cut out playing in front of his home crowd in Melbourne against Japan next week. Verbeek confirmed that Josh Kennedy is likely to be available while Tim Cahill will also be under consideration.

"As far as I know, Josh Kennedy will be ready. Timmy, it was too risky to play him (against Bahrain) but he should be ready. Similar story for (Vince) Grella. I didn't want him to pick up a yellow card because I need him next week," he said.

Verbeek said he would not risk any players already on yellow cards in the match against Japan, given a further yellow card would see them suspended from the first game of next year's World Cup in South Africa. That would preclude David Carney, Scott Chipperfield, Chris Coyne, Mile Jedinak, Luke Wilkshire and Mark Milligan from playing in the Japan match.

But Verbeek, who will also get back captain Lucas Neill and midfielder Mark Bresciano for the Japan match, is confident he can have a strong side out on the park.

"If you look at the players still available, I think you can make a very strong team," he said.

And the Socceroos coach is not concerned by the strength of the team the Japanese, who have also already qualified, bring out.

"That's up to (coach) Okada. I bring my best players and we will have 100,000 people in the stadium who will want to see the best available players and they will get to see the best available players. We want to be No.1 in the group," he said.