"No one else like him": Fontenelle lauds Davies as Slough march into FA Cup Second Round

Scott Davies. Photo credit: Zak Rana

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Tony Fontenelle heaped praise onto the shoulders of player manager Scotty Davies after he put in another exceptional display to help the Rebels through to the second round of the FA Cup on Saturday.

Slough came into Saturday’s tie against Altrincham in disappointing league form, having lost their previous two matches heavily to Weston Super Mare and Maidstone United, but in the FA Cup this season they’ve shown courage and grit and quality, and that was the case once again in Saturday’s 2-1 win at Arbour Park.

Davies and his centre half partner Reiss Greenidge were calm, composed and unbeatable across the 90 minutes plus stoppage time as the Rebels ran out winners with first half goals from Ansu Janneh and Wiktor Makowski. This was also an exceptional team display - from back to front, the substitutes and even the players who didn’t get on - as Fontenelle highlighted afterwards.

The draw for the second round takes place this evening (Monday) and Fontenelle would love for the Rebels to be drawn out to play his hometown club Luton Town.

“With Scotty, there is no one else in the country doing the job he is doing,” said Fontenelle.

“He will say he has support from the likes of myself and the other management team but fundamentally, the vast majority of it is being done by Scotty. He makes the team selection and produces these performances on the pitch and it’s a real credit to him.

“He fully deserves all the accolades he gets. To take a club with limited resources to the second round of the FA Cup could change the fortunes of the club. You hope you get a decent draw in the second round, and you don’t know what could come of it.

“I’d love to get Luton. Luton is my hometown club, and I’ve supported them for 40 years and they got through.

“Luton away, would be great, but you just hope for a big club. To get the TV cameras down would be nice, it would be a special day.

“I can’t think that far (third round). That’s unimaginable. That’s the stuff of schoolboy dreams and it would be a once in the lifetime opportunity. The football gods would be smiling down on us. But we’ve just got to keep our feet on the ground and enjoy these moments because there are a lot of downs in football.

“You must enjoy your wins and try and take this form into our league campaign because that’s our bread and butter.

Janneh and Makowski scored the first half goals which gave the home side a stranglehold in the tie against the National League visitors. And though Alty grabbed a goal back in the 65th minute through James Gale in the 65th minute, the Rebels were resolute in the closing 25 minutes - playing against 10 men for the final 17 minutes after Alty’s Elliott Osborne was sent off for elbowing Makowski close to the dug outs in the 82nd minute.

“The lads have learned loads about each other but we’re still relatively new as a group,” he added.

“In recent weeks, our squad has been tested (by illness and injury) not that we hide behind that as an excuse

“We’ve had a lot of injuries, but we always knew that once we started getting three or four of those experienced lads back that we’d be a force and more than a match for any team in our division and in divisions above as was proved today.

“As the game went on, we grew into the game. Our nerves settled and the lads felt more confident on the ball. We managed to get into the ascendancy ourselves and then we got the first goal. It was massive. Ansu Janneh has only just signed, yesterday. For him to come on and get the goal is full testament to him. We asked the lads to try and get their noses in front and once that happened we continued in a similar vein of form and Wiktor has then got the second from a great cross. We know Wiktor is a fox in the box, and he took that chance extremely well.

“Two nil can be a dangerous scoreline, but we stuck to our task in the second half. We didn’t retreat, we felt the best form of defence was attack and we pressed high. They were excellent on the ball, but we put a real shift in. We’ve had to shuffle the pack, but everyone who came on, even the lads who didn’t come on, they were all committed to the cause. It’s a fantastic day for everyone connected with the club.”

He added: “Reiss was an absolute man mountain at the back, and you’d see he’d easily compete at the National League level. He more than matched his personal duel. I thought he was magnificent.

“When I saw there was nine minutes (of stoppage time), I said to the management team ‘I’d rather be 3-0 down’ as stupid as that sounds, because of the torment you must go through. It was a long nine minutes and it felt like another 90 minutes. But we managed to see it through minute after minute and got the ball down to the corner. We ran the clock down well. The lads were superb and professional in everything they did.”

On Osborne’s late dismissal, Fontenelle added: “I’m not saying they were purposely elbowing anyone. But when you leave your arm up like, you leave yourself vulnerable for referees to make the decision. It was also right in front of the fourth official. He’s called it as he’s seen it. When this happened, I thought it was the right decision. They’ve looked back on the video evidence, and I understand they plan to appeal it. If it was the other way around, they would have reacted if it was close to their dug out. Did it make the task easier, no. Because they were working harder with 10 men. We had to really dig in, and we defended superbly.”