Asides of the reining team of Manchester City i dotn see another team in that level to be a contender for this Champions League, maybe if Real Madrid with Bellingham still in this apce can have a chance, but they need a real number 9 you cant play with Joselu in this level.
Along with Manchester City, I consider Bayern Munich as a worthy contender for this year's Champions League title. This group is very strong. Their attack has been weak in recent seasons. But with Harry Kane joining the squad, Munich's attack has become stronger. I don't think Real Madrid team is strong enough to win the Champions League title. They don't have a perfect scorer now. Performance of vini and rodrygo is not stable. Also, the Barcelona team is also very strong this time. They will definitely want to do well in the Champions League.
Taking into account that Manchester City is also having trouble here and there in their games, I think yes there are a few teams that have a realistic chance to win the Champions League trophy while leaving aside some other teams that might be in for a surprise like we have seen with Inter Milan. But I still think that Manchester City has left a lot of potential in the tank. I am not sure about Bayern Munich, but when De Bruyne returns, I think they will be much stronger than now.
Manchester City's performance is a bit slow right now, it's true. They have not played well in the last two matches in the Premier League and have been defeated. However, they continued their dominance in the Champions League. They won both the matches and played very well. And it is easy to understand that Guardiola's main target is the Champions League. Guardiola will try his best to win the Champions League. At the same time, I consider the Bayern Munich team as a favorite because their coach Thomas Tuchel is quite experienced. And Munich's squad is also strong this season. Munich also have the potential to be champions.
I am no longer confident that Manchester city will be able to defend their champions league title this season. Other clubs are in top performance such as Bayern Munich and Real Madrid. Barcelona is also doing great and even the Arsenal of English premier League is doing extremely well.
In the English premier League, Manchester city has not been experiencing top performance as they have lost their EFL cup against NEWCASTLE United and they also lost consecutively in their English premier League outing which I do not consider normal with Manchester city.
Manchester city needs to sit up their performance because the addition of a player like Jude Bellingham to the Madrid squad is scary because it has up their performance to another level.
Where expecting them to be able to defend the title before, if it is so, it means that you have misses it. You wouldn't use the past to judge the present or future in football, especially when we are talking about Man City who luckily win UCL last season due to luck. This is what people don't know that even the best team needs luck to succeed. If it was Real Madrid, I can say that it might be possible because they are the club that have only won UCL back to back, and they are the league favorite and not Man city. This was why I knew it, that it will be impossible to Man City to do what only Real Madrid has done, because they are not different from other clubs. It would have been boring assuming Real Madrid won UCL last season because the vibes will not be there that much, compared to when a new and different club entirely won it.