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I wonder what Yates might have done had he had a team behind him, with Chaves and his brother there for the climbs (although arguably Chaves would be leader in that scenario). Instead OBE went there like they always do, with a combination of sprinters and puncheurs to nab stage wins, and Yates had virtually no support in the mountains. It makes his 4th all the more impressive.
Jimmy_Fingers-
OGE have been clever in how they've started as a sprint team and organically developed their own GT capability. They recruited Ruben Plaza and Amets Txurruka for this year, but have Jack Haig and Robert Power (if he recovers from illness) as additional support for GC riders. I'd be surprised if they don't give Haig his first GT ride at the Vuelta, but you'd think they'll be looking to recruit a couple more mountain domestiques for next season, now they have at least two riders capable of challenging for GT wins.
andyp
Agreed.
You've also got to look at the quality of the domestiques, Rowe, Thomas and Stannard are all capable of leading the team through the cobbled classics, Poels won Liege this spring, Nieve won a stage at the Giro and the KoM jersey, Landa finished third in the Giro last year, and probably would've bettered that result this year if he'd not been ill, Henao is a consistent performer (and stage winner) in week long stage races and Kiryienka is the reigning World TT champ.
Basically, any single rider on the Sky Tour team could realistically lead a team elsewhere.
Everyone goes on about their budget, but both Katusha and BMC have similar budgets, yet they have nowhere near the amount of success that Sky have, so that budget is used wisely.