You really have to look at more than the results I think, the best physiological efforts I've seen so far this season, having watched every race have come from Romo, Buitrago, Pidcock and Gaudu.
Morgado and Christen look good, they will be happy with them, Narvaez on par with this time last season but also decent, was handed TDU on platter by Plapp and played it better this time around, hard to guage a proper comparison as he was also not UAE last season.
Valencia was a problem though, the TTT they had a squad that theoretically, given their rider and equipment advantage over the other GC lineups should've been far ahead of what they did, not necessarily beating Trek but at least putting reasonable time into RB, Ineos and Jayco. Mcnulty and Sivakov looked out of sorts on the hills, the former was stepping off riders with ease last year, both trained seriously for the race but when they tried to attack a lot of riders who shouldn't really be there had no problem following. Almeida was good despite positional issues but the climbing level of the team as a whole looked second best to Bahrain, Movistar and even Ineos.
Not only that but they've had a tough time in the desert, Vine looks like a good Conti-level rider, Majka nowhere, their best rider in Alula 18th against the likes of Terengganu, JCL UKYO and some Norweigan leadout guys, that was Bjerg who I hadn't even realised was racing, Pericas 46th who they were actually riding for. Yates also lost a step it seems, in February there should only be two riders in the world dropping him on climbs. Muscat Classic excellent parcours for him and I can't remember him even attacking, put on the rack by Gaudu yesterday and it could've been more, Damien Howson the silver fox not far behind.
It's early days but there's not much to do in February other than overanalyse races, perhaps they are just easing themselves in, but the signs of decline are there. I also think some of the other teams are catching on, Bahrain, Movistar and Tudor(!) are kinda flying, the level of Ineos riders is high too they just ain't winning sh*t.