Blazin' Saddles: Is this Team Sky's strongest Tour team ever?

When Michal Kwiatkowski signed for Team Sky last winter you can bet your bottom dollar that his plans for July did not involve riding the Tour de Pologne.

Sure, the former world champion has struggled at times with illness and form this season – but his omission from Sky's nine-man Tour squad will bring into question his decision to ditch Etixx-QuickStep (the Belgian team where he flourished) for a single-goal outfit where he has stagnated.

And yet, who would you omit from Sky's roster in favour of a 26-year-old rider whose only win this season has come in the one-day E3 Harelbeke race?

Sky's team is understandably build around Chris Froome – the rangy all-rounder looking to win his third Tour in four years under Sir Dave Brailsford's guidance. Support for 31-year-old Froome comes in the form of fellow Brits Geraint Thomas (who has protected status), Luke Rowe and Ian Stannard, Spaniards Mikel Landa and Mikel Nieve, Dutchman Wout Poels, Colombian Sergio Henao and Belorussian Vasil Kiryienka.

There's no denying that it's up there with the most "galactico" of football teams – a blend of attacking flair, sturdy defence, big-money signings and home-grown talent.

What first strikes you with the team is the fact that five of Froome's domestiques could feasibly lead any WorldTour team in a Grand Tour.

On the top of the pile is Basque climber Landa, who finished third in last year's Giro d'Italia while riding for then Astana team-mate Fabio Aru. Landa withdrew half way through last month's Giro because of illness – and it was probably his unexpected availability that struck the final nail in Kwiatkowski's Tour coffin.

Welshman Thomas proved his mettle as a Grand Tour contender in his own right last season with a wonderful display in the Tour in which he only dropped out of podium contention in the tail end of the race.

Thomas has made no effort to conceal his ambitions to lead Sky one day, but the fact that his form this season has been patchy – winning Paris-Nice yet struggling in the Tour de Suisse – should act in Froome's favour: here is a guy who will put his ambitions aside and assume the Richie Porte role with consummate professionalism.

Nieve, a stage winner in May's Giro, Poels, who provided Sky their first victory in a Monument in April's Liege-Bastogne-Liege, and to a lesser extent Henao, whose season has been interrupted by ongoing (but now shelved) investigations into his biological passport – these are also riders who, elsewhere, could be riding with a dossard ending in the number 1 pinned on their backs.

Throw in Kiryienka's selfless pacing over undulating roads and on early climbs, plus the tempo and marshalling of solid, non-nonsense British duo Stannard and Rowe – and that is one scarily accomplished unit behind Froome's bid to become the first rider since Miguel Indurain in the early 90s to win (at least officially) three Tours.

In fact, it's such a strong team that you would understand it if some of their rivals teams didn't think there was even much point turning up for the Grand Depart.

Even if Froome were to have a repeat of his 2014 race and crash out in the opening week, there are enough Plan Bs (running right through to a Plan G) to ensure Sky would not leave the race empty handed.

Both Landa and Thomas could have a tilt at GC; Poels, Henao, Kiryienka and Nieve would be free to get into breaks in the mountains, one of them perhaps targeting the polka dot jersey. Sure, Stannard and Rowe may resemble tennis players with racquets but no ball, but they'd no doubt cope, perhaps even find their calling by channelling Steve Cummings of Dimension Data and his successful approach to Grand Tour riding.

What the team lacks is clearly a fast man – someone in the mould of Mark Cavendish, who can win bunch sprints, or Kwiatkowski, who can combat Tinkoff's Peter Sagan in the kind of uphill sprints that we'll see as early as stage two to Cherbourg.

But who can forget Cavendish's largely unwanted presence on Bradley Wiggins' 2012 Tour team – the then world champion winning three stages but with a one-man train consisting of Bernie Eisel, and reduced much of the time as a water-carrier de luxe for the maillot jaune.

Perhaps a half-fit Kwiatkowski will be pleased to have dodged that ignominy. He can now focus on winning his home tour between 12 and 18 July before choosing between the Rio Olympics or the Vuelta a Espana (perhaps both) and weighing up his options for the close-season (Leave or Remain?).

Other key omissions from Sky's Tour team are Manxman Peter Kennaugh and Ireland's Nicholas Roche. Kennaugh was present in both of Froome's previous wins in 2013 and 2015 but he struggled last year en route to withdrawing in the final week.

The 27-year-old broke a collarbone in the Tour of California and so his absence is not too surprising – nor, too, that of new Irish national time trial champion Roche, who's already ridden the Giro and has a strong bond with riding in the heat of Spain in September.

Indeed, Sky's selection for the Tour helps us form an idea of the nine riders who will turn out in back and blue for the Vuelta – and that's already shaping up to be quite a formidable ensemble.

The likes of Kwiatkowski, Roche and Kennaugh will be vying for a berth alongside Spaniards Benat Intxausti, Xabier Zandio and David Lopez, Czech forgotten man Leopold Konig, Colombian Sebastian Henao and Ireland's Philip Deignan.

Throw in a sprinter – probably Dutch youngster Danny Van Poppel, given Elia Viviani's track ambitions for Rio – and we could well be writing articles about Sky fielding their strongest ever team for the Vuelta in two months' time.