Matthews gets green with sprint shirt envy

MICHAEL Matthews admits his Tour de France green jersey hopes are at the crossroads after he was blown away by a furious finale to Stage 10.

The Australian was left without answers as explosive rival Marcel Kittel took his fourth stage win and a grip on the points classification.

On a day where Chris Froome’s 18-second general classification lead was never threatened, Matthews screamed in frustration as he crossed the line in 13th – denting his green jersey ambitions.

Matthews sat outside the Team Sunweb bus with his head in his hands for several minutes before being consoled by teammate Nikias Arndt.

After clawing back ground on hillier terrain, he could only watch as another Kittel masterclass on the flatlands doubled the German’s lead.

Asked if it was still possible to finish in green in Paris, Matthews was matter-of-fact.

“I think that’s something we have to discuss tonight. Do we keep going for it? Or do we give it a miss and stop going for the intermediate (sprints) and just go for stage wins?” he said.

“I think we’ll need to have a chat with everyone and see what we did wrong and what we can do better next time.”

Matthews was again irritated by what he believed was a fragile leadout that left him with too much work to do.

“My (mojo) is totally there, but there was a miscommunication with the leadout train today,” he said.

“We weren’t where we said we wanted to be in meetings.”