It doesn't make sense that Manchester City is so fragile just because of Rodri's absence, but the absence of Rodri has caused Manchester City to lose a lot and they can't find an alternative to replace him. Real Madrid is the absolute favorite for the return match. Real Madrid's European success has always been admirable and they can continue this every time, there is no other team that can do this.
Although Manchester City's modern, fast and attack-oriented game will still make Real Madrid difficult, Real Madrid will use this as an advantage due to their defensive weaknesses.
Indeed, Rodri's absence certainly cannot be the reason that most of Man City's performance is not good, although there are indeed differences when Rodri is on the field, but of course Pep Guardiola should be able to improve this by not having one player. But in my opinion, what Pep needs to improve is his sharpness and utilization of opportunities which must be improved because I see that Man City sometimes doesn't take advantage of opportunities optimally and also City's defense line is easy to penetrate so of course Pep Guardiola must also be able to make City's defense line better.
Real Madrid are indeed favorites in the upcoming match in the 2nd leg because even though their defense line is reduced, seeing the fact that their last match at the Etihad was good certainly means they will have the potential to win at home. But of course Pep will do his best to make his team perform brilliantly at Real Madrid's headquarters and of course we can't predict with certainty who will win because of course in the last match Man City was the first to score and the goal difference is not that far so of course this will definitely make the match difficult to predict and my friends also have favorites for City to win and there is also Real Madrid.