Injury-hit Slough Town weigh up new signings after tough week on the road

Peter Ojemen and Jared Myers celebrate the side’s goal at Salisbury on Saturday. Photo credit: Cameron Webb

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Assistant boss Tony Fontenelle admitted conversations were taking place this week between himself, manager Scott Davies and the club’s board over whether reinforcements are needed to get the club through its current ‘injury crisis’.

The Rebels fell to back-to-back league defeats at Salisbury on Saturday, losing 2-1, and were then thrashed 5-1 by new league leaders Weston Super Mare on Tuesday evening.

But they suffered those losses with a very young, threadbare squad that was missing eight or nine potential starters due to illness and injury.

The Rebels were already down to the bare bones when a sickness bug swept through the camp last week, laying low some players including player boss Davies who couldn’t play at Salisbury or Weston.

They’d managed to eke out wins over Hampton & Richmond Borough in the league and Enfield Town in the FA Cup - to set up a first-round clash at home to Altrincham at Arbour Park on Saturday week. But this week’s league matches were a step too far for this very young and experienced team.

“We can’t fault the lads’ efforts,” said Fontenelle.

“We were fielding seven or eight youth team players. When you go to somewhere like Weston Super Mare who are now sitting top of the league, to be competitive, you need a full-strength side, which obviously, we were nowhere near.

We can’t fault the lads’ efforts and endeavours. They’re giving us everything but we’re going through an injury crisis. We’re going to have conversations with players to see when they’re likely to be returning and we may see then, Scotty and myself and the owners, if we can put some contingency measures in place. Because it is a bit of a crisis. The games are coming thick and fast, and we’ve got the FA Cup game coming a week on Saturday.

“The league is our bread and butter, and we can’t take our eye off the ball there, but there are conversations to be had.

On Saturday, Tommy Willard’s opener for Salisbury was cancelled out by Jared Myers’ goal on the hour mark, but Josh Hedges curled the winner past Adam Desbois in the 74th minute.

The Rebels were competitive for the first 20 minutes or so at Weston before falling away badly after Jaiden Drakes-Thomas had scored to make it 1-1. The second half dismissal of Harvey Walker didn’t help matters as they succumbed to a 5-1 loss.

“We went a goal down and we could have probably defended it a little better,” added Fontenelle. “We managed to get ourselves back level through Jaiden Drakes-Thomas who scored a fantastic goal.

“Five minutes later we’ve hit the post through Johnny Goddard and if we go 2-1 up it could have been a completely different game. Unfortunately, we conceded another goal through a set piece. We also concede early in the second half and that’s compounded when Harvey Walker gets a second yellow card for perceived simulation.

“We’ve looked at the video footage back and it’s two bodies coming together. We don’t appeal for the penalty. I just think the referee needs to take on board the scenario and repercussions of it. The game was lost then and from that moment on it was about damage limitations and unfortunately for Harvey, it now means he’s not eligible for the first round of the FA Cup.

“It’s just so frustrating, a really bad night and it was a long drive home. We just have to dust ourselves down and move on to Saturday, which is a really important game for us now.

Fontenelle added: “We’ve had a sickness bug go through the camp. Scotty has been unavailable, and I’ve never known him to be so poorly to be honest. It’s a credit to him that he’s managed to get himself out of his sick bed just to physically be there to do the managerial side of things from the sidelines. We’re always optimistic people and we’re resilient. We look for the positives and feel like we’re through the worst of it. We should have a few players back this weekend.

“Scotty is having some conversations but it’s difficult because you don’t just want to get players in for the sake of it. They must be the right characters and buy into what we’re doing. We’re not going to bring in players for the sake of it. They must add value to what is already a competitive squad.”

Slough will look to respond to these defeats when they host Maidstone United at Arbour Park on Saturday. The Stones are up to seventh off the back of wins over Farnborough and Eastbourne Borough.