Perhaps depends on you definition of the word world class, but I'd say we're not a million miles off that. We have strength in depth
I don't think it would cost much to find a better player than Gibson
Course it wouldn't. With Uniteds resources, perhaps they could find one for 10 million pretty easily. I'm sure there's some out there.
That's not the point though. Gibson is extremely low down the pecking order at United. He's not really gonna start if everyone is fit, unless it's an earlier round of a cup competition.
If we played Chelsea tomorrow, he'd probably be behind Giggs, Scholes, Anderson, Carrick, Fletcher and Hargreaves in the pecking order for CM. Possibly O'shea as well. Maybe Park.
Fact is though sometimes we're lacking in numbers, we have a game in a few days, and it makes sense to rest people. Hence we have Gibson in our squad.
Gibson is on course to have played around 13 games this season in the prem. That's about a third of the games which have featured Gibson. That's a hell of a lot, and he's a great option to have around.
When Chelsea got rid of everyone last summer, they got rid of Ballack and Deco. They bought in Ramieres. When Lampard was injured during that terrible run, they would have loved to be able to bring Ballack or Deco on. Players like Brown, Gibson and O'Shea are why we remain challenging. We need them.