'Boring' James Milner fights his case in winger debate ahead of World Cup

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The boringness of James Milner has taken on something of a life of its own. It has its own Twitter account with a quarter of a million followers and is starting to dictate the emotions of the crowd at England games. When Milner appeared as a substitute against Peru at  Wembley on Friday a slight groan rippled around the arena. Nothing too nasty but, for some England fans, an appearance from the Manchester City midfielder reflects Roy Hodgson’s natural caution as a coach. If he starts ahead of Raheem Sterling, for example, in the World Cup opener against Italy, Hodgson will be accused of opting for containment at the expense of flair. Full of running: James Milner appeared as a substitute during England's 3-0 win over Peru at Wembley   Milner shrugs it off. This is all part of it. He is so incredibly sensible, the model professional, who does as he is told, eats and drinks exactly what he ought to, runs an average of about 13 kilometres per game and is seldom distracted by the glitz and glamour of a footballer’s lifestyle. He has relished more than most the acclimatisation training and, when a tropical storm washed out England’s planned training session in Miami on Monday, the 28-year-old Yorkshireman was not knocked from his sturdy stride. ‘The weather was pretty wet, similar to Manchester,’ said  Milner. ‘It’s nice for me. It’s like at home again. The schedule wasn’t to do a lot anyway.  Everything we were going to do on the pitch, we did in the gym, starting with a jog. The main thing is to be around the humidity. It gets you used to what we’ll be having in Brazil.’  When asked whether he thought it was time to leave City to secure more regular football, he replied: ‘As far as I know, I’m concentrating on England and the World Cup.’  These are exactly the sort of comments which might appear on the parody Twitter account @boringmilner which regularly offers thoughts on special offers in Asda or celebrating the title by drinking eight cups of tea. It has more than 250,000  followers, compared to Milner’s actual account @JM7Foundation which promotes his charity the James Milner Foundation, and has just over 15,000 followers. ‘It’s not doing badly, whoever it is,’ said Milner. ‘I’d like the James Milner Foundation to have as many followers as that. I’ve read a few of them and some are very funny.

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