A pleasing if somewhat nerve-wracking three points was how St Albans City manager David Noble saw their National League South victory at home to Slough Town.

Goals from Ibby Akanbi and Dylan Fage had given Saints a 2-0 lead after just 18 minutes and they looked to be cruising at that point.

But Slough hit back in the second period, first through Dan Bayliss and Josh Jackson, the latter on 71 minutes.

But a second for Akanbi with 15 minutes to go put City back in front and this time they held out for a 3-2 success.

Noble said: "It's a bit of a cliché and people say it all the time but 2-0 is a difficult score-line, especially for St Albans.

"We made hard work of that victory.

"It was arguably our best first half of the season though. We were 2-0 up and could have had one, even two more.

"We played some really good football and totally dominated but we knew it wasn't going to the be the same story in the second half and so it proved.

"The third was against the run of play too.

"We were trying [to go forward] but you have to give credit to Slough. They were on fire and they were difficult to stop.

"You have nothing to lose when you are 2-0 down, you can throw caution to the wind and at 2-2, every bookie in the land would have had Slough favourites to go on and win.

"But we won it and that showed big character. I'm really proud of the players."

And there was praise from the boss for the front three of Akanbi, Mitchell Weiss and Gio Rasulo plus league debutant Sam Bentley in goal.

Noble said: "The three up front were superb. Ibby scored two great goals, the first one was a great little pass from Ben Smith and he coolly finished.

"The second all three were involved in the build up - Ibby, Mitch and Gio. That was a really good goal.

"[Bentley] had a great game. His bravery, his distribution and he popped up with a couple of important saves.

"I'm saying what a great National League South debut and yet he conceded two goals. But he did, he had a really good performance."