Djamel Belmadi cast doubt over his future as coach of trigger-happy Qatar after the future World Cup hosts' poor Asian Cup campaign ended with a third defeat on Monday.

The stony-faced Algerian said he was coach "at least for the moment" when discussing his choice of goalkeeper Qasem Burhan, at fault for the goal which gave Bahrain a 2-1 win.

"I'm the coach, at least for the moment. You never know for the future," said Belmadi, who is the 30th coach in the Qatari hotseat since 1990.

Belmadi led Qatar to West Asian Cup and Gulf Cup wins last year but their Asian Cup campaign flopped badly with defeats to UAE, Iran and Bahrain leaving them bottom of Group C.

They now have a repair job before qualifying starts for the 2018 World Cup, Qatar's last chance to play their way to the sport's biggest stage before hosting in 2022.

Just before making his frank admission about his future, the feisty Belmadi had grumpily refused to discuss it when questioned by a journalist.

"My future? Talk with the federation. If you want to talk about football, talk about football. If you want to talk about jobs, be serious," the coach shot back.

Qatar missed a hatful of chances, mainly to 21-year-old striker Mohammed Muntari, before Burhan was embarrassingly caught off his line by Sayed Ahmed's late chip.

But Belmadi defended both players and said star man Khalfan Ibrahim, the "Maradona of Qatar", was left out because of a knee injury.