Premier League champions Manchester City have reportedly rejected a € 15 million bid for Spanish striker Alvaro Negredo from Spanish champions Atletico Madrid.

The offer, according to City, does not match their valuation of the striker whom they signed just last season from Sevilla for almost £ 20 million.

The capital side is looking at life beyond David Villa, who has already signed for the new Major League Soccer side New York City FC, which is owned jointly by City and the New York Yankees as well as Diego Costa who is almost certain to make the move to the Premier League with Chelsea.

They have earmarked the former Real Madrid hit man as their number one striker priority and are expected to return with an improved bid for the player who was a massive hit in his first season in English football before trailing off towards the end of last season.

It has been reported that the Spanish international is not in the best of terms with Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini who only sees him as a third choice striker behind Sergio Aguero and Edin Dzeko, thereby limiting his first team opportunities.

City are reportedly holding out for a fee in the region of € 30 million but it would be interesting to see if Atletico make such an offer despite making a huge profit from the potential sale of Diego Costa.

Atletico Madrid manager Diego Simeone is a huge fan of powerful striker and pushed the club to make a bid for him last season as well but Negredo snubbed them in favor of Manchester City. However, with Atletico in red hot form and expected to improve next time around as well, Negredo might just be interested in making the move to Madrid this time around though.

Chelsea boss José Mourinho dismissed the title last of his team after they suffered a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Crystal Palace during the weekend. This coupled with Liverpool’s win at Anfield over Tottenham meant that the Reds have moved to the top of the table. Manchester City, however, failed to capitalise on the dropped points by Chelsea, as they could only draw 1-1 against Arsenal at the Emirates stadium. After managing to beat Arsenal 6-3 earlier in the campaign, City were expected to comfortably winning this match.

However, this draw means that the title still remains in the hopes of Chelsea according to Pellegrini, who has been involved in a war of words with Mourinho throughout this campaign. Pellegrini has also not dismissed Arsenal out of the title race, despite Arsene Wenger’s men slipping further behind leaders Chelsea and Liverpool. City still have tough matches against the likes of Liverpool between now and the end of the season. He has also taken a jibe at Mourinho by claiming that intelligent managers do not like to start mind games.

While Chelsea have only six matches remaining in the league calendar, City have eight matches and will be expected to cover those games in hand over the next few weeks.

“I don’t think important managers can give any importance of those mind games. I don’t know if you think managers who seem to play mind games are more intelligent, but I don’t think so. It is not my duty to analyse what Mourinho says. I repeat, I don’t know the way he thinks. My way of thinking is that the four teams have the same options to win the title. It is very close, all the other teams have six games and 18 points to play for,” said Pellegrini after the Arsenal match.