{"id":334830,"date":"2025-12-08T11:49:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T11:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/334830\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T11:49:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T11:49:08","slug":"jeff-king-boreham-wood-full-back-likened-to-alexander-arnold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/334830\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff King: Boreham Wood full-back likened to Alexander-Arnold"},"content":{"rendered":"

After his shot hit the net, King blew a kiss to a TV camera adjacent to the goal dedicating it to his mother, who died last year.<\/p>\n

“That’s probably the most special moment I’ve had on a football pitch since that happened. The defender cleared it to me and I caught it lovely. I’m just grateful it went in,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I probably had the toughest year outside of football and in football, not playing a lot of games. <\/p>\n

“I got an opportunity to come to Boreham Wood (in the summer) and when I spoke to Luke, he welcomed me with open arms and made me feel like a son.”<\/p>\n

Garrard is in his second spell as manager, having first been appointed in October 2015, making the then 30-year-old the youngest boss in the top five divisions.<\/p>\n

He left Meadow Park in May 2024<\/a> following relegation to National League South, only to return five months later and guide them to promotion and a return to the top level of non-league football. <\/p>\n

He said: “The style had to change, we were in a division last year where we had the biggest budget and the best group, so you can’t go and serve up what I was doing in years before, being a pragmatic manager and having percentages football. <\/p>\n

“The fact that we’ve won games in the league (this season) and have gone to the third round of the FA Cup and are yet to concede, there’s more confidence and belief (in the team) , and when you tell them something, they hang on your every word.”<\/p>\n

After watching his side outplay League Two opposition, Garrard said he did not have a preferred system or formation, just a “concept”.<\/p>\n

He explained: “The players understand exactly what I mean by that. Depending on what the opposition present, we’ll find a way to go and play round them. <\/p>\n

“I can only be as good as the players I work with and this group is genuinely excellent. I love coming to work and when you’ve got intelligent people that understand what you want, they go and implement exactly that.”<\/p>\n

Garrard will watch Monday evening’s draw in the hope of an away tie against Premier League leaders Arsenal but said their next league fixture against Brackley Town – who have also reached round three – is “the biggest game” on his mind.<\/p>\n

“I’m an Arsenal man, I love [Mikel] Arteta. Arsenal would be the ideal,” he added.<\/p>\n

Brackley’s best FA Cup run was in 2021-22 when Garrard guided them all the way to the fifth round before losing 2-0 at Everton.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After his shot hit the net, King blew a kiss to a TV camera adjacent to the goal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-334830","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}