Australia starting to gel as World Cup edges closer

Popovic was parachuted into the job six months ago when Graham Arnold quit, and his vision for the squad is beginning to take shape.

A 5-1 thumping of Indonesia in Sydney on Thursday was their best performance since he took over and leaves them in pole position to join already-qualified Japan at next year's tournament from Asian Group C.

"I aim quite high," said Popovic, who is looking to steer Australia to their sixth successive World Cup. "They're not there where we want to be, but that's not a negative, that's a positive. They've taken strides forward, and it's not easy to do what they did (against Indonesia).

"Five goals is difficult against anyone. We've played a good opponent, it's a World Cup qualifier. We all want to always get better and try and improve the game style and that will happen with more games together."

Australia travel to Hangzhou in China for a crunch match on Tuesday, needing another win to keep their dream alive of booking the second automatic qualifying place. Just the top two from the group progress automatically, with third and fourth forced into another round of Asian qualifying.

With three games left, the race for that second slot remains wide open after Saudi Arabia beat 10-man China 1-0 in Riyadh. Heading into next week's games, the Socceroos have 10 points, one ahead of the Saudis who travel to Japan, and four clear of Indonesia, China and Bahrain.

"Unfortunately, with a lot of injuries and a lot of changes, it's hard to build continuity," said Popovic. "But what we are building is squad depth. This camp is the first time I felt in training and around the hotel that this group is now starting to build into what we're trying to build going forward.

"So positive and very excited by the next game." Australia got the win without a handful of injured regulars, including Leicester defender Harry Souttar and Middlesbrough midfielder Riley McGree.

Adding to their worries, goal-scorer Martin Boyle and striker Adam Taggart both went off at half-time with niggles against Indonesia.