Speaking as trade team‑mates for the first time since 2008, Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish seemed to have a single voice: this July, both men agree, it should be possible for Team Sky to reconcile their disparate goals in the Tour de France. Cavendish wants to defend the green points jersey he won in 2011, Wiggins to finish on the podium, but neither man seemed to feel the other's objective is potentially damaging.

"It's definitely possible for me to win the green jersey and a British rider to win the yellow jersey in the same Tour de France at Team Sky" was Cavendish's take as the team officially launched its 2012 lineup. Wiggins echoed the Manxman: "Is it possible to win yellow and green at the Tour? Yes, I think it is, it's been done before, so why not, in this team especially. That might not be the goal. But if it is the goal, we don't think one's going to jeopardise the other."

Since Cavendish's arrival at Sky was confirmed on 11 October, there has been constant speculation about how his and Wiggins's interests can be married during the Tour. It is not uncommon for teams to aim at both the overall and the green jersey: as recently as 2008 the Rabobank team won the points classification and placed the Russian Denis Menchov fourth. It is 14 years, though, since the German Telekom squad won overall and points with Jan Ullrich and Erik Zabel, the last team to do so.

Cavendish is unwilling to go into the specifics of how it could be done but Wiggins said he believes having the best sprinter in the world at his side should be beneficial, simply because it will give him and his team‑mates an added incentive to be at the head of affairs early on. "Those first-week stages are a nightmare, everyone wants to ride at the front. And having Cav, his team was always on the front in the first week. It's an ideal place for me to be, out of trouble. I think it would certainly bring the team closer together in that first week, [I would] feel like I've got a role in that first week as opposed to just waiting for seven or eight days until that first mountain stage. From day one it'll definitely be game on."

There is, said Wiggins, also an obvious benefit to having the world champion in the same team: assuming he is on song, Cavendish's prolific win rate should raise morale and lessen the pressure on the whole squad. "Aside from the fact of riding at the front, nine times out of 10 Cav's going to win if [the stage ends in] a sprint. So you're having success. I can't see it as being anything other than positive: the morale in the team from having success in first week, him winning stages, me being out of trouble."

Cavendish said that he has worked in the past for team‑mates who were aiming for the overall standings in the Tour, notably the German Tony Martin, and he sees no reason why that should change with Wiggins. "We've got some of the best bike riders in the world at Sky, definitely the best bike riders in the world for a double-ended approach. So for me it's fine. I'll make sure I'm in the best condition I can be and I've confidence in the team that we can all work together and be successful. At the end of the day I'm not in this to be successful in myself. I'm not in this to have people help me to achieve things. I'm in this to be part of something successful.

"I've always helped out gc contenders, I always helped Tony Martin before the television cameras started. It's not difficult for me. I never got bottles, or maybe once or twice [but] if he had to be at the front for a climb, I'm good at positioning [myself in the bunch] so I'd help him get position. It's as simple as that."

The key dilemma for Dave Brailsford and his managers will be how to select the five riders who will support Wiggins and Cavendish, and the other two automatic selections, the Vuelta runner-up, Chris Froome, and the Norwegian all-rounder Edvald Boasson-Hagen. Those five will form a "super team within a team" according to Brailsford, and, he says, can "make or break" the race for Sky.

"They have to be world-class riders in their own right. They will have to have the mind-set that they are the guys that actually make this team win. That's what has been taxing our minds, we have been putting a lot of thought into that, about what type of rider and what it would take in order to take on that challenge."