Geraint Thomas is one of plenty of captains in a very strong Sky line-up for today's Paris-Roubaix. All teams have learned a lesson from last Sunday's race in Flanders and as a consequence, the Wallisian rider expects plenty of attacks on the day's route between Compiegne and the velodrome in Roubaix.

The British Sky team played a dominant role in last year's edition of the Paris-Roubaix, and they were by far the squad with most riders in the group which chased an irresistible Tom Boonen in the latter part of the race. In the end, the team's used up all of its energy, and a 4th place for Juan Antonio Flecha and an 8th for Mathew Hayman was the outcome for a team which had shown its enormous collective strength.

Today the Brits return to the cobbles of Northern France with the ambition of improving last year's result. Flecha has gone for pastures new at the Dutch Vacansoleil team but the Spaniard has been replaced by Geraint Thomas who is back in his beloved classics after a year with a firm focus on the track and the Olympics.

With his demonstration of power in the Tour of Flanders, Fabian Cancellara (Radioshack) underlined his status as the overwhelming favourite, but Jurgen Roelandts (Lotto-Belisol) proved on the same occasion how far you can get by using shrewdness. While all other favourites desperately hoped to be able to follow Cancellara's expected acceleration on the final climb up the Oude Kwaremont, the Belgian anticipated the proceedings with a gutsy attack. In the end, he was rewarded with a 3rd place.

Thomas expects that plenty of teams have learned their lessons from Sunday's race and as a consequence he expects an attacking affair.

"I think we have to be aggressive, and a lot of the teams are thinking the same, so I think there will be a lot of attacking and groups going away all the time," he told Feltet.dk. "Fabian is strong and I don't think anyone wants to wait for him to attack and try to hold on - and I don't think anyone can - so I think it will be an aggressive race."

Collective strength

As it was the case last year, the Sky team is on paper one of the strongest with an impressive collective strength. Even though Thomas confirms that he shares the captaincy role with Norwegian Edvald Boasson Hagen, he sees the team's many different opportunities as their greatest asset.

Furthermore, the team is back at full strength after a very unfortunate Tour of Flanders in which two of the team's key riders, Hayman and Bernhard Eisel, were forced out of contention due to illness.

"We all got sort of a free hand  - Hayman and Bernie (Eisel, ed.) as well," he said. "Everybody is definitely going well and everyone is a lot healthier than last week, so hopefully we can have a little bit better luck."

Plenty of bad luck

Luck has not been on Thomas' side in the first two monuments of the year. In both Milan-Sanremo and the Tour of Flanders, the Olympic gold medallist was set back by crashes in the crucial phase of the race. On Sunday, he managed to get back to the group of favourites, but without any power left he was unable to stay with the best on the last two climbs of the Oude Kwaremont and the Paterberg.

"It was annoying," Thomas says. "It was a bad race. It was more frustration of crashing at that point in the race than the actual harm of my tumble. I had done everything good up to that point in the race. There is not a lot you can do."

Luckily, Thomas has escaped any serious injuries, and he has not been affected by the illness which has marred the team.

"It is okay," he said. "I had a few issues with my bum, so it wasn't the best. But otherwise everything is fine."

"I have not had any kind of illness. I felt a little sore throat after E3 so I just stopped for a while and took it easy and then I was okay."

Starting at 12.45, you can follow the attempt from the Sky team to save a disappointing classics season on CyclingQuotes.com/live.

Team Sky for Paris-Roubaix

Geraint Thomas, Edvald Boasson Hagen, Mathew Hayman, Ian Stannard, Bernhard Eisel, Salvatore Puccio, Gabriel Rasch and Luke Rowe