Considering the performance of Manchester City against Tottenham in the Premier League, Manchester City cannot be considered as a favorite team in the Champions League. They did not perform well at all last season in the English Premier League and the Champions League, if we take the players who were in their team last season, their club has the same players this season, so there may not be a significant change in performance from Manchester City.
Manchester City performances are no longer powerful again, unlike before, when the team was so good that most of the teams were even afraid to face them, but now nobody is even talking good about their performances. Last season was a very bad season for them, and instead of the coach doing the needful for the team so that they would be much better, for them to fight for the Champions League and Premier League, he couldn’t do anything about the team.
This shows that, as you said earlier, even this season there will not be any single changes from the teams since the players that they used last season, who performed very poorly for the team, are all in this new season again, and they are expecting their performances to be better. How is that going to be possible? And that’s why people didn’t consider them a favorite team to win any leagues this season.