Ashley Westwood on leading Afghanistan, Sir Alex's wisdom, India and his coaching journey

New Afghanistan coach Ashley Westwood is used to a challenge. The former Manchester United youngster, an FA Youth Cup winner in 1995, was assistant manager at Portsmouth to Michael Appleton when Pompey went into administration. From there tmoved to Blackpool, owned by the notorious Oyston family, who were despised by supporters. Then it was Blackburn Rovers, who’d just been taken over by the Venky family in an era when they sacked managers with haste.

That a man from Manchester is now in charge of a national team who can’t play home games in their own country barely fazes Westwood, who spoke exclusively to The National on his way back from a first ever trip to Kabul. Next is a visit to Doha for a World Cup qualifier on November 16 against Carlos Queiroz’s side in the Khalifa Stadium, which staged games at Qatar 2022.

Afghanistan are ranked 154th in Fifa's world rankings, placed between Lesotho and Singapore, Qatar are 61st.

Afghanistan’s players, drawn from clubs and leagues all over the world, were supposed to meet up two days ago but there’s still no sign of them. Eighteen players are currently boycotting the Afghan Football Federation because of allegations of corruption. Westwood has to shape a side from players he’s never met.

“The issue with the players and the FA is between them,” he said. “I understand the concerns and issues of the players, while the FA have delivered everything they said they would to me and I have a job to do.

“I’ll coach the players that are available. I’ll form opinions of players and see how they conduct themselves. I don’t care if they’ve played four games or 400, everybody will be equal. If you’re committed to me then I’ll give it back. I want a dressing room pulling in the right