Reading between the lines, it seems that Movistar wanted the small group to stay away because it looked after the second place of Enrique Mas, and were prepared to force "Superman" to soft pedal and watch his third place (and 4th, 5th, 6th) to ride away up the road.
You can understand how infuriating this would be - you fight for 3 weeks to get onto the podium and get the best result of your career, and then the team tell you to throw it away (not for the win, but to look after second place!).