The home side twice came from behind with goals by Aleksandar Duric and Mustafic Fahrudin cancelling out strikes by Timur Kapadze and Victor Karpenko, but Server Djeparov scored twice and Vitaly Denisov added another to put the visitors 5-2 up at half-time.

Aziz Ibragimov and Maksim Shatskikh struck for the Uzbeks after the interval while John Wilkinson bagged a consolation goal for the hosts.

But Avramovic chose to look on the positive side and revealed he would have been very happy if someone had told him before the match that Singapore would score three goals against the Group Four leaders.

"They didn’t concede any goals in the matches against Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. If we score three goals in any other game, we would have won it," said the Singapore coach.

The Serbian felt that his team lost the battle in midfield and their defence looked non-existent at times.

"We were losing possession 30 metres from goal and we cannot afford to do that against a team like Uzbekistan," he said.

Avramovic added that Shatskikh was the main threat for the Uzbeks as he pulled players out of position, opening things up for the midfielders to run in and create chances.

Uzbekistan coach Rauf Inileev claimed it was a satisfactory result for his side and felt that Singapore did not prove to be easy opponents.

Inileev said that the high-scoring match was a result of open football being played by both sides.

"When you have two sides who have a great desire to score, there will be an opportunity for such a big result," said the Uzbek coach, who left hurriedly with his team to catch their charter flight immediately after the game.

Inileev added that Singapore’s Aleksandar Duric was the biggest threat for the hosts but noted the striker’s age of 37 may have been the main reason why he could not last the entire match.