Slough Town deny Carroll and Dagenham but left frustrated by missed chances

Reiss Greenidge helped Slough keep a clean sheet at Dagenham. Photo: Zak Rana

--

Dagenham & Redbridge 0, Slough Town 0

Scott Davies said he enjoyed the ‘tear up’ with former Liverpool striker Andy Carroll in the Rebels goalless draw with Dagenham & Redbridge last night (Tuesday).

But despite being more than satisfied with his side’s performance – and their general response to the disappointment of bowing out of the FA Cup in the second-round stage – there’s a big part of him which felt his side should have taken all three points at Victoria Road.

Slough had a massive chance to go in front just before the interval when Ruben Shakpoke raced clear on goal, but McKenzie-Lyle was able to save low down.

Davies said afterwards that Shakpoke was ‘beating himself up’ about the miss, but others also had chances, with Wiktor Makowski drawing a fantastic save from the Daggers’ keeper on the hour mark as well.

Dagenham also had their moments, with Adam Desbois denying Harvey Broad in the 68th minute. In the first half Carroll caused his usual chaos in the box and saw a 35th minute header cleared off the line by Tyrique Clarke with Desbois well beaten.

Towards the end of the second half, Makowski must have thought he’d won it for the visitors when he turned his marker inside out before sending the ball towards the bottom corner. But a retreating defender was able to clear the ball off the line.

Slough stay in 22nd place but move level on points with Enfield Town in 21st and are now just a point from safety.

The Rebels are also undefeated since their agonising FA Cup loss to Macclesfield at Arbour Park, bouncing back to beat Abingdon United comfortably to progress to the semi-finals of the Berks & Bucks Senior Cup before last night’s encouraging performance and result at Dagenham.

They are back at Arbour Park this Saturday to take on promotion hopefuls Dorking Wanderers, who themselves claimed an impressive 3-2 win over fellow challengers Weston Super Mare last night. That result lifted Dorking to sixth place.

Speaking with Connor McNeish for Slough Town FC after last night’s match, Davies said: “For me, if you draw a game, you want to draw it 0-0. A clean sheet is a good base to start with.

“We came out in the first half and could have found ourselves in front. Ruben is beating himself for a really good opportunity that he’s missed, but I’m glad he’s there to miss that opportunity and I’m glad to see that he cares. Second half, we had another couple of good opportunities, possibly could have got ourselves in front. Dagenham, to be fair, had a couple of goalmouth scrambles.

“It’s a game we felt we should have been in front in but could have ended up going behind. I think before the game, if you’d have said to me, it will be 0-0 away at Dagenham we would have taken it. They are a huge football club for this level; they have loads of experience and a good squad. They have some fantastic players, I really like Joe Haigh, I think he’s one of the best in the league. Andy Carroll was a threat when he started, and we had a good tear up with him at the back and I was super proud of our performance. I thought there were a lot of good individual performances across the board.”