Repeat Performance

Watching Slough Town these days is like turning on the television and seeing an omnibus edition of EastEnders or Brookside the action is the same but it's just on at a different time.

And that was certainly the case at Wexham Park on Saturday when the Rebels served up an omnibus edition of their showing the previous week at Dulwich Hamlet.

In fact had the setting (Wexham Park) and the opposition (Carshalton Athletic) not been different, you could quite easily have been excused for thinking this was just an extension of last week's programme at Champion Hill.

Once again Slough, for the large part, were the better team and generally dominated this Servowarm Isthmian League, Premier Division clash.

But, when it came to turning some measured approach work into goals the Rebels were on the wrong wavelength. Slough forced 11 corners to Carshalton's three and created numerous clear cut chances but only had one Rowan Dodds effort to show for all their work.

Meanwhile it seemed that almost every time Carshalton put pressure on the Rebels defence they would score and from the limited opportunities they carved out the "Robins" netted with three lethal strikes.

And so the Rebels crashed to their second successive heavy defeat as that most important factor of turning your chances into goals was again drummed home to Howard Kennedy's side.

Because in the space of four minutes in the second half twice Carshalton broke away, after sustained Slough pressure, to kill the Rebels off with some lethal finishing.

It was at this point that the Slough fans must have wished they could have switched channels and watched a repeat of the Rebels' previous home display when they toppled leaders Sutton rather than this latest programme.

The day had begun with Dave Russell returning to the Slough side after some four months with Wycombe Wanderers and finished with Vaughan Powell becoming the 33rd player used by the Rebels this season.

Slough began brightly, producing some measured football with Dave Alexander at the heart of their early promise. Dodds, Tate and Keith White all tested Colin Oakley before totally against the run of play Carshalton scored on 23 minutes.

Gary Mitchell's cross was knocked back at the far post by Trevor Smith and there was the impressive Michel Milojevic, to crisply volley the ball past Les Currell from ten yards out.

This appeared to be only a temporary setback for Slough as they continued to produce some composed and constructive football and indeed only the crossbar prevented White from a deserved equaliser in the 30th minute. His delightfully placed chip shot beat Oakley only to strike the bar and bounce back into play, and Francis Araguez then saw his shot blocked away with the Carshalton defence in utter chaos.

Slough had a scare in the 48th minute when Milojevic headed against the crossbar and it was the precocious and flamboyant skills of this former top French League player that were always at the heart of Carshalton's most dangerous moments.

However, on 58 minutes came Slough's long awaited goal. Alexander sent over an inviting and measured cross and Dodds did brilliantly to get in and send a header just inside the post, for his 20th goal this season.

It was now that Slough should have really turned the screws on Carshalton but, after White had seen a header superbly tipped over the bar by Oakley they missed two golden chances.

Twice the normally deadly Tate could not find the target and when on each occasion the ball broke to Devon Petty, the midfielder was still left seeking his first goal of the season. And how Slough paid for those missed chances as Carshalton grew in confidence and rattled the Rebels with two goals in four minutes.

On 70 minutes right back Gavin Fraser sent a curling 25 yard shot over Currell's head into the net and then John Hales, intercepted a bad pass on the left and scampered through to score with a well taken effort.

So once again Slough's inability to display that lethal touch in front of goal proved costly and deprived them of three points they must have been confident of winning at one stage of this match.