Poor Start Bucks Rebels

The Rebels' match with Telford at Wexham Park on Saturday was virtually over after just seven devastating minutes from the visitors.

But the Slough side were punished for a lack of finishing when they could have quite easily taken something from this game. The afternoon began with a buzz as the news that regular keeper Trevor Bunting had been replaced by new signing Phil Burns.

The dropping of one of the Wexham Park favourites was a surprise. With only two minutes on the clock, a desperately slack piece of work from Mark Hill allowed Tim Langford to take the ball from him inside the Slough area and blast a fine shot from the edge of the six yard box into the roof of the net.

Heads went down, but Slough looked good going forward and Paul McKinnon's snapshot was saved by Telford keeper Darren Acton.

But soon after a shoddy clearance across the area was forced out for a corner, and from the resultant set piece Stuart Clarke thundered home an unstoppable shot from the edge of the area.

The two goal start for Telford took the edge off the game with Slough defending abysmally.
But they slowly got their act together and pushed forward, but found a lesson in defending from their Telford counterparts.

Slowly they began to break the visitors down though and Telford looked in trouble as the Rebels got behind their defence. Eamonn O'Connor caused problems on the left and Barry
Rake's pace was a thorn in the Telford side, with Gary Donnellan enjoying his role in the centre of midfield.

The difficulty was in not panicking as they went forward, but when the chances came, as they did throughout, there was a tendency to snatch with the pressure of a two goal deficit playing on the Slough minds.

Slough did well to break down a superbly organised defence and create chances that shouldn't have been missed. McKinnon should have scored with a close range header after a deflection and then the alert Slough striker, who caused a lot of penalty area problems for Telford, was agonisingly wide at the far post after good work from Steve Thompson and Phil Stacey.

Rake missed a golden opportunity to pull a goal back after O'Connor's fine cross which eluded both McKinnon and the keeper and fell to the young Slough man, who dragged his effort wide of the open goal.

But another dire piece of defending almost let Telford in for another. Colin Fielder's poor pass let in the impressive Ian Brown, who was finally denied by Mark Hill but the ball ran to Langford whose effort was hacked off the line by Alan Pluckrose.

From the resultant corner Burns pulled off a good reaction save to deny the unmarked Brown.
Slough should have been back on level terms by now and again went close when Stacey drove his shot wide of the mark, but they just couldn't get that goal.

Stuart Clarke was booked for throwing the ball at the referee and could have walked if O'Connor had not caught the ball before it hit the official.

Slough had dominated the first half though they never looked as potent as Telford going forward. Shoddy defending hadn't helped and though it was difficult to determine the difference between the abilities of Bunting and Burns, one game is hardly a barometer to ability and the unfortunate Burns became the brunt of the blame when he could hardly be held responsible for the goals after such a poor defence display.

The second half started with the Rebels on top but trying to do too much. Slough were trying to get the ball too close to goal and found a packed- visitor's defence too much to break down.

Paul Dyson picked up a booking after felling McKinnon and Slough pushed forward, though they couldn't break down the visitor's defence as they did in the first period.

An error by the otherwise dependable Mick Putnam almost cost Slough dear but the effort was wasted.

The second half began to di3 and lose momentum with Telford doing the job they needed to do, though Thompson had a good effort saved after a neat build up.

But the law few minutes saw Slough back into their -defensive disarray and they were duly punished for it.

Telford roamed the acres of space as Slough pushed forward and poor challenges allowed the Linnets to pick their man and create a number of chances.

Trevor Whittington made it 3-0 with eight minutes to go with the Rebels defence left chasing shadows.

Slough's disappointing result on Saturday saw them drop down a place in the League to fourth after a poor defensive performance.

Manager Alan Davies said: "The reality of the Conference League is that you cannot give teams two goals in the first seven minutes and expect to come back. The first goal was down to some bad defending from an experienced player but the second was a cracking goal. The rest of the first half was us and when you make eight chances and fail to score you've got to be despondent."

"The second half was all us but again their third goal was down to bad defending."

Movement at Wexham Park has seen three players go on loan. Tommy Langley and Tony Dell have both gone to Aylesbury United with Naseem Bashir going to Chalfont St Peter.

"Tommy is free to negotiate with any club," said Davies: "Anthony Dell has gone to get some matches under his belt, as has Bashir."