Oxford City’s penultimate pre-season test ended in a narrow 2-1 defeat away at Slough Town. 



A similar story to Saturday’s performance against Walton & Hersham, the Hoops dominated possession but couldn’t make their pressure pay on the night. 

Zac McEachran’s equaliser in the second half cancelled out Jaiden Drakes-Thomas’ opener, before a late goal from Ruben Shakpoke clinched a smash and grab victory for the hosts. 

Ross Jenkins rotated the side that played on Saturday with the substitutes from the weekend taking their turn to rack up precious minutes. 

The opening few minutes were tightly contested before Drakes-Thomas’ immaculate opening goal. 

The winger was given too much time on the wing to cut inside and curl a sumptuous shot into the top corner giving ‘keeper Jonny Maxted no chance in between the stick. 

Despite City’s attempts to level before the break, Slough’s ‘keeper Josh McNamara was rarely called into action. 

Matty Taylor’s stinging volley was almost the perfect antidote to City’s early set-back, but he saw his fierce strike well saved by McNamara. 

In fact, Maxted was the busier ‘keeper producing a number of quality saves to deny the hosts a second goal. The best save being a stunning fingertip stop to deny a Slough header. 

Half-Time: Slough Town 1-0 Oxford City 

A number of changes at the break saw more senior players come to the fore, and from the get-go the Hoops dominated. 

The culmination of which came in the 63rd minute when excellent link-up play between Kauan Bitencourt De Oliveira and Evan Humphries saw the full-back whip a low-cross into the six-yard box for McEachran to tap home. 

McEachran showed a striker’s instinct to nip in between two Slough defenders to tap home. 

From there on in, City’s grip on the game tightened, but despite working their way into dangerous areas on multiple occasions, a goal never came. 

Dillon De-Silva and Keegan Bloom seemed to be striking up a fruitful partnership on the right-hand side, and Canice Carroll was back to his usual tricks with a commanding display. 

There was a brief moment where the Hoops had their heart in their mouth, but a superb goal-line clearance from Ludwig Francillette stopped what looked to be a certain goal. 

However, the Hoops were made to rue their missed opportunities and a late counter-attack punished City. 

Shakpoke was the man who got the goal, doing his name justice with a poked effort that found its way into the net. 

Despite late pressure, the Hoops couldn’t quite level, but it was another good workout for the squad and more precious minutes in the tank.

That’s two performances may have ended in defeat, but weirdly leaves more confidence and hope than a typical result. 

Now though, with one final dress rehearsal to go before the big curtain-raiser against Bedford Town (Sat 8 Aug), we’ll start to see the culmination of the hard-work. 

Onto Chesham.