Ashley Westwood: "We’ll be stronger next week" after Kerala Blasters 2-0 win at Inter Kashi

Kerala Blasters FC beat Inter Kashi FC 2-0 at the Balewadi Stadium in Pune in their 2026–27 Indian Super League season opener on 11 October 2026, and head coach Ashley Westwood spoke to the media after the match.

An early strike from Vibin Mohanan and a stoppage-time goal from Andre Green secured the victory, a clean sheet and three points for the Blasters as they began their ISL campaign; Westwood said he was pleased with the result but conscious of the game's issues when addressing reporters.

Westwood said he was "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."

The coach confirmed additional staff and players were still joining the squad, saying: "We’ve got two staff members arriving this week. Fallou’s in the stand, having just arrived. He landed at one o’clock today." He praised Momo Yansané for his willingness to play after a long journey: "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."

On the value of a narrow win for his squad's development, Westwood said: "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." He added: "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."

Discussing his substitution choices and specific fitness concerns, Westwood said: "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." He went on: "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." He also commented on Ebindas and Andre: "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."

Westwood explained Adrian Luna was rested because of foot blisters and provided a fitness timeline: "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." He added: "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."

Kerala Blasters are top of the table after the opening round with 3 points and a goal difference of +2; Vibin Mohanan and Andre Green were the scorers and Westwood said Luna would return to training on Monday, giving him a full week to prepare for the upcoming match against NorthEast United.