Defending champions ATK will be guided by former Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspurs striker Teddy Sheringham in the fourth edition of the Hero Indian Super League. The Englishman will get his first taste of Hero ISL football when ATK face Kerala Blasters FC at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Kochi on Friday. Sheringham spoke to indiansuperleague.com recently in an exclusive interview about the pressure of being defending champions and director of football Ashley Westwood’s role in the club amongst other things. Here are the excerpts.

Two-time winners and defending champions! What’s the pressure like going into the new season?

Yeah, I’ve been asked that quite a bit. It’s a strange kind of pressure. Different manager and different group of players. It’s just the name of ATK defending the title really so, only two or three current players played in the championship last year. So, they know all about it, but normally it’s a bigger squad. But we’re representing ATK and they’re used to winning, so the pressure is on in that sense I suppose.

Your first Hero Indian Super League. How has the experience been?

Very good! I came over to Kolkata for the draft and then went to Mumbai. It was raining for five days solid. I wasn’t really impressed, but you’re not really impressed with anybody when it’s raining! So, since we’ve come back, the weather’s been fantastic, people have been very hospitable and treated us very nicely. So, no complaints as of yet.

You’ll were in unstoppable form in pre-season, so what’s the confidence in the camp like right now?

I’ve had pre-seasons before where I’ve won every game and then you start the season where you lose. Then there are lots of times when you lose a lot of games in pre-season and then you start winning in the league. But it’s a nice mentality to have that we’re winning games and scoring goals we’ve got a nice winning mentality.

Give us an insight into the role that Ashley Westwood plays as the director of football and your relationship with him?

It’s a very good relationship. He knows all about the Indian players. Not only the players in our club, but every other club as well. He’s been leading here for four years so he’s very knowledgeable. He’s a very ambitious man and works very hard on whatever he’s doing. He’s not always around the football side of it. There’s a few more details he’s involved in now, but if there’s a shoulder to lean on, his is definitely the one that I go to.