Davies hails Slough Town's 'most complete performance of the season'

Tyrese Dyce (left) scored on his 50th appearance for the club in Saturday’s 3-0 win. Photo credit: Zak Rana

--

'The most complete performance of the season' is how player manager Scott Davies described Slough Town’s 3-0 away win at Hemel Hempstead Town on Saturday.

The Rebels headed to Hertfordshire off the back of a deflating 2-1 defeat at bottom of the league Chippenham Town – having notched up three straight league wins prior to that.

Hemel had had the edge over the Rebels in recent encounters and are chasing promotion this season after a fine first half to the campaign. But they were clinically dissected by a Slough side who all produced ‘8 out of 10 performances’ at Vauxhall Road.

Wiktor Makowski tapped them in front midway through the first half after capitalising on a miscommunication between defender and goalkeeper. He also claimed the second goal with a back post volley that was clawed out on the line, but Ruben Shakpoke followed in to smash home and make it 2-0. Slough’s third – in the seventh minute of first half stoppage time – was the clincher, with Tyrese Dyce heading home Johnny Goddard’s free kick from the left to mark his 50th appearance for the club in style.

Three goals and three points in Hertfordshire on Saturday #OneSlough pic.twitter.com/w8ltTfAsRr

— Slough Town FC (@sloughtownfc) January 20, 2026

“I’d say it was the most complete performance of the season,” said Davies this week.

“Everyone who played was an eight out of 10 at least. Some of the lads really delivered on what we wanted from them. And when you’ve got a team playing as well as they can, often you’re going to come out on the right end of the result.

“It was fully deserved and we probably could have had a couple more goals as well.

“It was a result many people didn’t expect us to get.”

Heading into the game, Davies and assistant boss Tony Fontenelle felt there were areas and weaknesses Slough could target against Hemel and there was certainly no sense of inferiority from the visitors despite the disparity in league positions. Slough were happy for Hemel to have the football, and to dominate possession and territory, but when the visitors did win the ball back, they broke quickly and effectively.

“We’d done quite a lot of research on the stats before the game and we were quite even with Hemel on a lot of things, apart from goals conceded because we’ve shipped a lot more goals,” said Davies.

“They are usually quite resolute at the back, and they don’t concede many, but we felt like we could target them in certain areas and we managed to do that.

“The lads in certain areas of the pitch were superb, and we know that when we get it right, we can tear a team apart.

“Over the first 45 minutes we certainly did that. I thought our power and pace were the things that hurt them the most and then at the back we were solid and we kept the door shut.

“Keeping a clean sheet was just as important as scoring the three goals. It was a huge three points and to get four wins out of five is a great run.

“When teams come onto us and leave space behind them, we always feel like we carry a threat. A lot of teams are desperate to have the football at their feet, but we’re not a team that needs 60 per cent possession. That’s not where our strengths are. We’ve recruited a team in the summer to be exactly like we were on Saturday. The frustrating part is that we’ve left it halfway through the season to hit a run of form like we have. But there’s so many factors that have come into play that we’ve maybe not done it sooner, with injuries and so on and so forth.”

Slough face the teams just above them and below them in the table this week, having lifted themselves seven points clear of the relegation places this weekend. Tonbridge Angels are the visitors to Arbour Park on Saturday before the Rebels go west to play Bath City on Tuesday night, two massive fixtures they’ll be targeting positive results from.”

“Saturday was a massive three points and now we have to try and back it up this weekend,” added Davies. “We have managed to get more points than expected in our last five games but now we have another four games and we’ve set ourselves another target. That starts at home to Tonbridge.”