I guess you can still put it into manual mode by pushing the stick to the left.
It’s alot easier with the paddles though. My last two non vw cars have had paddles, The golf match edition I had before did not. Sometimes the big issue was it would often change up gears way to early imo, especially if you had a fully loaded car.
So I had to use manual mode to pull away from lights and get upto cruising speed then I’d put back in auto plus it’s also very useful when driving in snow etc as engine breaking is better and safer than actual breaking.