"We’ll be stronger next week": Ashley Westwood speaks after Kerala Blasters FC's 2-0 win against Inter Kashi
Kerala Blasters FC began their 2026–27 Indian Super League (ISL) campaign with a convincing 0-2 victory over Inter Kashi FC on 11 October 2026, delivering a composed and well-rounded performance to secure all three points.
An early strike from Vibin Mohanan and a stoppage-time goal from Andre Green ensured that the Blasters started their ISL campaign on a positive note.
Following the 2-0 victory, Kerala Blasters FC head coach Ashley Westwood addressed the media. Here is a detailed report on the post-match press conference of the match between Kerala Blasters FC and Inter Kashi FC.
“it’s going to be a long season for me”
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The English manager seemed to be happy with the result but knew the game wasn’t all positive. He was very aware of the problems that the Blasters faced during the game.
“Happy with the result obviously, 3 points and a clean sheet. Although maybe we didn’t deserve a clean sheet. The pitch was very tough and didn’t get much protection from the referees. There were lots of fouls, but I don’t think there were any yellow cards in the game apart from mine, which is amazing. Looks like it’s going to be a long season for me, by the looks of it. We’ve just got to use it as a progression.”
Ashley Westwood confirmed that the two support staff would join the camp this week and the two outstanding foreign players, Fallou and Momo, had arrived.
He also appreciated Momo for his willingness to start the game, despite having a long travel and not having proper training, as the player arrived the night before the match. Momo Yansané’s plea worked as the Englishman decided to put him on for the second half of the game.
“We’ve got two staff members arriving this week. Fallou’s in the stand, having just arrived. He landed at one o’clock today.”
“To be fair to Momo, he’s an incredible person already, in my opinion. He travelled for around 22 hours yesterday, reached the hotel at 9 PM, and was saying, “I want to start, I want to start.” He obviously came on at half-time. I shouldn’t have put him on, to be fair, but I thought we needed something. He gave the assist for Andre, and we won 2-0, so it doesn’t really matter. We’ve won, and that’s all that matters. Those are the positives.“
“I would’ve made 10 substitutions at half-time”
Ashley Westwood pointed out that the match was a really important one and that winning by a huge margin would have meant that the team wouldn’t be able to find out the problems they can be facing. He also spoke how the match helped most of his players gain some much needed playing time.
“We’ll be stronger next week and improve. I’d rather have a game like that than come here, win 5 or 6-0, and think all of a sudden we’re going to do really, really well. Now we can dissect how we can improve, and that’s what we need to do. It’s really a pre-season friendly, isn’t it? We’re eight or nine days into a four- or five-week pre-season. For me, we shouldn’t be too critical.“
“If we had the choice, we would have made 10 substitutions at half-time, given everyone 45 minutes, and followed the periodisation plan and all that rubbish. But we just have to be thankful and happy that we’ve won. The lads have got a workout. They’re not running or having me shout at them in training, and they’ve had a nice game of football.”
“Sanan is the most unfit player at the club”
Ashley Westwood said during the press conference that, rather than defending and sitting deep after scoring, he wanted to make attacking substitutions to provide minutes to the players. He added that players like Sanan, Ebindas and Andre Green were not in their best shape and needed to play some good minutes to reach their best.
“I think that’s always the risk. When you make attacking subs, you’re obviously going to be more open. So, it’s part of getting people fitter. It’s a risk as a manager. We could have been 1-0 up, put a load of defenders on and tried to sit deep and soak it, keep the ball and relieve ourselves of pressure. And if you’re trying to be really tactical and clever, then maybe that’s what you do.”
“But I was always trying to get people minutes that are going to help us further on down the line. So, Sanan needs minutes. He came back from the India camp, and we fitness test every player and he’s the unfittest player at the club. And he’s the one who’s done the most training. So, I’m not sure what he’s been doing with the Indian national team, but he’s come back to us in really bad condition in regards to his fitness. So, we need minutes, we need to get him fitter, we need to work in training.“
“You know, Ebindas is naturally not a really, really fit player, although he’s got a great heart and he’ll get fitter. So, I always wanted to get people like that on the pitch, which is going to leave you open. So, again, if we draw 1-1, then I’ve made the wrong decision. You get Andre in the centre of the pitch, and although he missed a chance, you think if he gets another one, he’s going to score, and he did. And thankfully, we got the goal to kill the game near the end.”
“Adrian Luna got two really big blisters on his heels”
When asked about Adrian Luna’s absence, Ashley answered that Luna had a blister in his feet and was not available for training for the last two days. As the coach did not want to take any risks on the player, to prevent any further infections, the player was injured. Ashley assured that Luna would be back to training on Monday, giving him one week to prepare for the match against NorthEast United.
“Yeah, again, just looking after people, he got two really big blisters on his heels, and the last two days he didn’t train. He’s been wearing flip-flop slippers, as you call them, to try and get some air to his blisters, and we looked at the pitch, and we’re thinking, do we really need him? And that’s not disrespectful to Inter Kashi.”
“Do we want to make him more injured? Because blisters, you know, you keep knocking the skin off, they get worse, they get infected, which they’re not at the minute and then all of a sudden, he’s got a problem Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, next week, where now we know Monday he’s ready to train, he can have a full week leading up to North East. So, again, trying to be clever, spin plates, we’re eight days into our preparation, so we can’t risk too many things.”
What happened in the ISL match between Kerala Blasters FC vs Inter Kashi FC?
Kerala Blasters FC beat Inter Kashi FC 2-0 away from home at the Balewadi Stadium in Pune. Vibin Mohanan & Andre Green scored for the Blasters.
What is Kerala Blasters FC’s current position in the ISL points table?
Kerala Blasters FC are on 1st position after their match against Inter Kashi with 3 points and a goal difference of +2.
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