Westwood: Kerala Blasters' 2-0 win over Inter Kashi

Ashley Westwood, head coach of Kerala Blasters FC, spoke after the 2-0 win over Inter Kashi. He talked about the result, the goal that settled the team, his attacking substitutions and the absence of Adrian Luna.

How happy are you with the team, and what are the positives to take into the next match?

Well happy obviously with the result, three points. Positive clean sheet, although maybe didn't deserve a clean sheet. You can't be too critical. The pitch is very tough, of course. We didn't get much protection from the referees. There was lots of fouls, but I don't think there's 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. And we just got to use it as a progression. We got two staff members arriving this week. Momo, to be fair to him, incredible person already from my opinion. Traveled, I don't know, 22 hours yesterday, reached the hotel at 9:00 p.m. and he's like, "I want to start. I want to start." And obviously comes on half time. We shouldn't have put him on to be fair. But I thought we needed something. He gives the assist for Aiban and we win 2-0. So it don't really matter. We've won, that's all that matters. That's the positives and like I say, we'll be stronger next week. We'll improve. I'd rather have a game like that than come here and win 5 or 6-0 and think all of a sudden we're gonna do really, really well. Now we can really dissect how we can improve and that's what we need to do. It's a pre-season friendly really, isn't it? It's 8-9 days into your progression of doing a 4 or 5 week pre-season. So for me, not too critical. If we had the choice, it would have been 10 subs at half time, everyone 45 minutes, periodization, all that rubbish. Well, we just have to be thankful and happy we've won. Positive, lads have got a workout, they're not running, they're not having me shouting at them in training and they've had a nice game of football.

Did the 80-minute goal help you settle, because in the second half they came back stronger?

Yeah, I mean the goal was a good goal to be fair. Got good numbers in the box. Vibin scores, always nice for a domestic player to score. A bit of good passage of play, Carou down the outside, nice cut back and good numbers in the box. Good penalty box coverage and a really good finish. So that helped us. That settled us. And of course, half time 1-0, Inter Kashi got nothing to lose. Like I've said, the pitch is not easy. Our boys may be psychological holding onto a 1-0, even though we tried to make positive substitutions. We put Sanna on, we take Vibin off, we put Ebenez on, take Shreyas off. So we making positive attacking subs to see if we can go and win it two or three. It weren't to be. They up their game a little bit, they started applying a bit of pressure. We got a little bit sloppy, some small little passes that weren't good. And they start to gain some confidence and get into the game. So all this is to be reflected on, dissected, but we've got the win 2-0 and that's what we came for, so hopefully now we can just build and improve.

You made many changes in the second half and the team looked a bit weak.

Yeah. No 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 try 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 Sanna 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 has 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 regards his fitness. So he need minutes. He need to get fitter. We need to work in training. Ebenez 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 it open. So again, if we draw 1-1 then I've made the wrong decision. You get Aiban in the center 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 goals to kill the game near the end because I think if we hadn't got that goal it felt like it was going to go the other way to be honest. It could have been 1-1.

Was there a specific reason Adrian Luna did not play?

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-flops, slippers as you call them, to try and get some air to his blisters. And we looked at it, 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 him to make him more injured? Because blisters, you keep knocking the skin off. If 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 NorthEast. So, again, trying to be clever, spin plates. We're 8 days into our preparation, so we can't risk too many things.

We will get 12 days.

Yeah, and that's, it still, that'd be short, 2 weeks training, but that's where we are and hopefully we can just improve.