Dortmund, PSG and Milan are teams that have experience in the Champions League compared to Newcastle. Their mentality is good even though they always have difficulty qualifying for the final, but I really think that Newcastle are the underdogs in this group.
The matches played so far has already proven to us that it is not by the experience of the team in the champions league but it is about what they can offer now that will give them an edge over their opponents. If we claim that PSG, Dortmund and Inter Milan that have had a lot of experience in this competition, Newcastle should be sitting on the buttom of the table which they don’t. The group is definitely the most competitive group in the group stage and I think we can’t determine who will qualify from this group just yet, until we see the end of the group stage matches.
Manchester City lost a match against Arsenal in the Premier League so it is not correct to say that Manchester City has weakened a lot in terms of performance. Sometimes bigger teams lose against smaller teams and this is not unusual. Manchester City's performance this season is a little less than last season, maybe because some important players of Manchester City are injured and they could not play any matches for Manchester City this season, but the reserve footballers that Manchester City have are definitely good player. While Manchester City's performance in the Premier League has been a bit slow, their performance in the Champions League has been normal and they will do well in this Champions League season if they improve their performance gradually.
Because Arsenal lost to Manchester City does not mean that Manchester City was a more superior team than Arsenal. If I am to quantify them, I will place them as equal on the same level, so Arsenal is not an underdog team that should be disrespected in this regard. Manchester City have not been that bad in the premier league to my understanding because they are still in the second place on the table which is still okay to me. The players they have injured does not mean that it will weaken their performance while playing without them because they’ve played well and win matches without them present. Their performance in the champions league which you see that they excel more as compared to the premier league can be attributed to the teams they have to face in their group stage games, which are not as tough as the ones in other groups. This has given them an edge ahead of other teams in the competition.