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          James Milner at Liverpool: Celebrating five years of fun and 'boring' social media

          • Chris Wright, Toe Poke writerJun 4, 2020, 10:20 AM

          Today marks a momentous day in football as we celebrate an important milestone in the history of Liverpool FC.

          On this very day back in 2015, a young hero by the name of James Milner agreed to take a pay cut in order to complete a free transfer to Anfield from Manchester City.

          It turned out to be one of the finest zero pounds the Reds ever spent, with Milner quickly becoming a paragon of consistency and versatility over the course of 200-plus appearances, as well as a Champions League winner.

          He's also a thoroughly nice chap. Here are five highlights of his time on Merseyside.

          Twitter

          Back in 2013, before signing for Liverpool, a parody Twitter account cropped up called "Boring James Milner" (@BoringMilner). It was nothing to do with the player himself, but gained cult status in mocking him as one of life's less interesting characters -- and now has more than 650,000 followers.

          After resisting for many years, Milner finally joined the wild world of social media in March 2018 -- largely as a parody of the parody account by placing himself in the most mundane of situations. He burst onto the scene with a tweet about ironing.

          One year of lo-fi fun and frolics then passed before the Liverpool man revisited his debut tweet, celebrating his first 364 days online by looking back and paying humble tribute to his Elite Steam 3000.

          Regulate

          Not content with proving himself the most dependable footballer on the planet, Milner also took the hip-hop world by storm in 2016 when he lent his supreme Yorkshire flow to Warren G and Nate Dogg's G-Funk classic.

          Ribena

          When Liverpool held on to ditch Roma out of the Champions League at the semi-final stage in 2018 in chaotic fashion, Milner was asked whether he intended to celebrate with a glass of red wine.

          Having been teetotal all his life, the midfielder's deadpan response has since become the stuff of legend.

          Milner actually scored an own goal in the second leg too, which he just about managed to laugh off afterwards.

          Meeting Neymar

          Two very different footballing worlds collided in 2018 when Milner was tasked with man-marking Neymar during a Champions League group-stage tie.

          And when we say "collided", we mean "collided."

          Isolation king

          Milner emerged as a hero during the first few weeks and months of lockdown by striving to keep our collective morale up on social media.

          He started by doing what anyone would do.... sorting his teabags...

          The former Leeds United player then stepped it up a notch by cutting the grass in his garden.... with a pair of scissors!

          Next up, the midfielder passed the time by sharpening his pencils.

          But the drama didn't end there, as Milner was sent to clean all the stones on his drive.

          The Liverpool man shared several amusing snippets on Twitter but the best of the bunch was undoubtedly his pun laden "Isolation XI" team.

          Unfortunately with the players back in training, the social media fun has come to an end.