Kuala Lumpur’s Golden Triangle can be an interesting place for an English football fan. Big billboards featuring QPR may be harder to find these days but you can go shopping in an official Liverpool store and you won’t have to wait long to see a Manchester United shirt wander past. On a hot afternoon, not that there’s really any other kind in the Malaysian capital, in August, passers-by could also have seen an embrace between Carlos Queiroz and Gérard Houllier, with both in the city for a coach’s conference.

Under the shadow of the Petronas towers, the twin giants of English football they used to work for still rule the roost. For how much longer remains to be seen. There are signs that Liverpool’s long-standing popularity in the region is slowly starting to wane and Queiroz is concerned his former employers have moved away from the legacy of Sir Alex Ferguson, the manager he served as an assistant from 2002-2008, a term punctuated by 10 months as head coach of Real Madrid.

Now in his fifth year in charge of Iran, the Mozambique-born manager still keeps a close eye on events at Old Trafford. “The foundation of Manchester United’s success was based always on trust, confidence, continuity – the values of the club. I think there have been too many changes that disrupted the continuity and tradition of the club,” he tells the Guardian.

“There was nothing wrong with building the future based on the principles that were already inside Manchester United created by Alex Ferguson, that was the right direction. OK, I understand that after Alex … the complexity of the transition was not an easy task. I have great admiration and respect for Louis [van Gaal] and David [Moyes], they are great coaches that I admire but I think they made some critical and crucial mistakes in the transition from Alex.”

For Queiroz, Moyes deciding to change the coaching staff almost immediately was a prime example of the errors that have been made. “It was not necessary to turn everything upside down with the staff with people like Mick Phelan, people that know the insides of the club. I learned with people like Bobby Charlton and Alex this magnificent lesson that you must trust your own people. The year I came back from Real Madrid we needed to make the decisions about the future of the team. Roy Keane, Giggs and Scholes were the core but we had a lot of young players like Cristiano, Rooney and Vidic. There are no other people in a better position than your own people to know what do to. No other people could be better prepared to make the right decisions in terms of continuity … we need to see some leadership.”

Despite all the changes, Queiroz is looking to Van Gaal to start producing the goods this season. “ I hope and expect this season that Manchester United is able to not only compete, to win but to win in style because that is what Manchester United is about, winning with style and entertainment. A club like Manchester, with its financial capabilities, the results must be there immediately. We also want to see the players shining. Great players like Best, Scholes, Giggsy, Keane, Van Nistlerooy – where are they? Where are the stars of Manchester United?

“It was always about creating players. Now it is the opposite, we see some of the best players going down and even some of the players that arrived in the team like Falcao and Di María were on the bench. I saw Di María and some games, he looked like he has never played football. There is panic buying. You have to prepare and then make the decisions together. You can still make wrong decisions but we never made panic decisions when buying players.”

Instead of watching from afar, Queiroz could be back in England after the 2018 World Cup, or even earlier should Iran fail to qualify for Russia. “It’s a dream to get back to English football. I left England and I did not complete my job over there.” There have been offers. “Unfortunately they came at a time when I was too much involved with deals that I could not get out of. I respect other coaches and I am not the kind of person that it is easy for me to make a deal and in the middle of the deal to say ‘bye bye, I have a better deal elsewhere’. I just can’t do that. I had at least two opportunities to get back to England, but it was six months before the World Cup and it was not correct to do that. I also think that if you start a job with such behaviour, you immediately lose credit and respect and what you are saying to your new club is that you could do the same to them.”

At the moment, he is happy with Iran though the job can be a frustrating one. The 2014 World Cup when Team Melli drew against Nigeria and were defeated only 1-0 by Argentina thanks to a last minute piece of Messi magic was, he says, satisfactory. Once it was over, he was ready to leave, doubtful if he could do it again for 2018.

“For me it was the end and I had a couple of opportunities in other countries but two influential sources inspired me to stay. One was the players, they had been fantastic to me and the nation and collectively they asked me to stay. The most important source of inspiration was the people of Iran, the fans, they act with me in such a way that it was tough to say no.” The football federation told Queiroz that the possible end of the US-led sanctions was in sight, an end to eight years of punishment that had made it increasingly tough for the federation to gain access to funds, facilities and friendlies. It reached a nadir, according to Queiroz, at the Asian Cup in January, with conditions of hotels, travel, camps and so on, not of the required standard. The sanctions ended in July but the former Manchester United man is less optimistic than some in Iranian football that this will translate to a quick improvement off the pitch.

On it, qualification for the 2018 tournament started in June and, on Thursday, Iran bounced back from a disappointing draw in Turkmenistan to defeat Guam 6-0. Getting to the final round of qualification should not be a problem but once there, Iran will again have to scrap for World Cup spots with nations such as South Korea, Australia and Japan who are free from such issues. “We will see if the situation improves, we never lose hope but if things keep going like this, then it will be very difficult for Iran to succeed. I call [the 2018 World Cup] the impossible mission. We need Tom Cruise or a team of Tom Cruises to get through.”