James Milner is always keen for the standards to be sky high at Liverpool.
And so it proved yesterday as he dished out an x-rated welcome to new recruit Kostas Tsimikas.
Both men came on at half time during the 3-0 friendly win against Stuttgart over in Austria.
Minutes after their introduction, the Greek left-back had the option of playing it down the line for Milner - but declined and instead came inside with a ball to Takumi Minamino.
The Yorkshireman was quick to voice his displeasure, as the touchline mic picked up his cry of: "Ah Kostas! F*****g hell."
But it is all part and parcel of what is required to play for Liverpool.
And the sharp-tongued lesson seemed to go down quite well.
Reacting to the victory afterwards, Milner posted on Instagram: "Wet, boggy... and got caught warmly welcoming Kostas to the team #welcometoliverpool".
He threw in a facepalm emoji, a laughing face and a grimace for good measure.
Tsimikas replied with "Thanks bro" along with a laughing emoji and a red heart.
Jurgen Klopp was pleased with the pre-season debut of his new defender when he offered his post-match reflections.
The boss told the club website: "Good, good. He is a pretty quick player and pretty confident, how you will hear in his [post-match] interview.
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"But he is a good player - a really good player - and he did well. The next challenge for him is now to get used to our defending and things.
"It will take time, no doubt, but when he has the ball it looks not so bad."
Speaking about his own performance, Tsimikas said: “I feel very good, I’m very happy I did my debut.
“Now I want to work more and to play more often in the league games. I want to be ready for everything.”
He added: "The friendly games are difficult. First of all we have to be fit, that’s why I tried to run a lot first of all; to show a good image and play hard.
"And the result is the most important [thing], even in the friendly games and the competitive games."
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