Even Jack Haig said at the beginning at the Vuelta about sharing leaderships in the team to take off some pressure on Landa's shoulders. I'm pretty sure he can still surprise us and win some big races. It would be good to see Landa&Caruso in the Giro next year.
I think Bahrain have gone in with essentially a duel leader approach in both Giro and Vuelta. Especially in La Vuelta where from the start all of Landa, Mader, Haig and Caruso were trying to do their own race. Even in TdF last year, Caruso was still going for a GC position despite being a level below the other contenders. I think they just say Landa is sole leader to take a little pressure off the others and it works as for example Caruso was barely mentioned for GC by journalists before the race despite being on the podium of the Giro just a few months ago.
In the Vuelta, yes. Their approach was a bit different, which is normal after Landa's injury and the performances of Caruso, Padun and Haig this year. But in the Giro 2021 and Tour 2020 in every interview I saw, it was all for Landa. But it's ok, I get it. The team had his numbers, they expected him to fight for the podium and they were right. He was close in the Tour and probably would have been a strong candidate for a Giro podium, too, if not for the crash.
But if you think about it (bad luck aside), since 2015 he's been riding for almost all the best GC oriented teams in the world, Astana, Sky, Movistar and Bahrain. Every year he's had a chance to ride for himself in at least one GT with strong support (in 2015 Vuelta he entered as a co-leader with Aru), despite some of those teams having stronger and more reliable riders to lean on in GTs. Yet he has no GT podium as a GC team leader. His only podium came when he was riding as a domestique and had no GC expectations.
I'm not trying to hate on Landa or anything. Far from it. I just think he is far from underrated. Heck, I believed he would have fought for the victory in this Vuelta and actually put money on him winning before the race. We, the fans always talk about him as a possible winner or at least a podium contender before the race. Also all the sites that do previews for races have him among the contenders regularly. Like I mentioned before, he's been always riding for the top teams and is being well paid. So how is he underrated exactly? Sorry, I don't see it. Now Masnada, that's another story. Probably the most underrated man on Earth.