Nairo Quintana has four days to beat Chris Froome. But how can he do it? With strong teammates, Chris Froome is still confident, but Movistar hopes to be aggressive on Alpine roads.

"You have to sit down and look logically at where the time was lost. The truth is it was the time trial above all that played on his strengths, and we couldn’t really do anything about that.

"As we've seen, his team is really strong, they've not suffered much damage from any attacks. Some of his team-mates who are helping him could be leaders in other teams. The main idea is to try to get him on his own."

“They want to defend their positions," Valverde added in a hotel conference room. "Looking at the teams that are above us, Sky is the strongest by some distance. The others, yes they’re great teams but I think they’re focused in a different way. For example, Trek didn’t bring as many climbers as Sky – neither did Orica. I think our team is team is quite a bit stronger than either of those two."

General manager Eusebio Unzue told Cyclingnews that he should make alliance with Astana to take on Froome. "Aru is a man for the third week as well. The truth is, in Astana, with their aggression, we could well find common goals and have extra ammunition against the strength of Sky."