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Negredo: Navas link up key for City

Alvaro Negredo opened his Manchester City account against Bayern Munich © Getty Images

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Alvaro Negredo hopes his instinctive alliance with Jesus Navas can lead to a Manchester City goal glut.

The two Spain internationals have been team-mates for the past four seasons at Sevilla, where Negredo scored 70 goals, before both joined City this summer.

And Negredo, who opened his City account in the 2-1 Audi Cup final defeat to Bayern Munich on Thursday, said they can communicate without words.

However, statistics show that Navas only assisted just one of Negredo's 25 strikes in La Liga last season, but he told City's official website: "We have had four years of working together. We can understand each other just by looking at each other and hopefully we can work together to score lots of goals."

The 27-year-old got off the mark by putting City ahead in the Allianz Arena and added: "Hopefully it will be the first of many in a City shirt."

Manager Manuel Pellegrini was delighted with the way City played and selected second-half substitutes Navas and Yaya Toure for praise.

"I am very happy with a very good performance. We played against the last Champions League winners at their stadium and I think after the first 30 minutes when Bayern had possession of the ball, we started playing better and we had at least two or three clear chances to score," he said.

"In the second [half], I think we play better and Yaya [Toure] and Navas played well. We scored a goal and we had at least two more clear chances to score a second goal.

"We didn't start with our best team. Bayern put all their best players in. We have another 15 days to [prepare for the] start [of] the Premier League.

"The team had the personality to play well at the most difficult stadium in Europe. So there are lot of reasons I am very optimistic we are going to have a very good team for this year."

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