Hasn't Brown already stepped in at both CB and RB in a title winning side, often enough, shouldn't that really be proof that yes, he can do that?
Also, Brown, and o'shea, and others were youth players who came through. They are a step up from Djourou, Hoyte and the equivilents at Arsenal.
Current youth players who Arsenal got free and trained for years before hitting the first team, Gibbs who doesn't play often but does seem like he'll be very good, Wilshire, same so far. Diaby sucks and we got him quite old, Song wasn't trained at Arsenal and is fairly new, and most of the other players were bought in as basically first team players, Fabregas, Rosicky, Arshavin, Almunia, all 3 CB's now, Sagna, Eboue, Chamakh, RVP, Vela, Theo.
Clichy's an exception we actually bought a great player ready to be first team, at 18 he played enough games in the first year to get a league winners medal, he made 22 appearances in his first season, its not like we got him at 14 and turned him into a great player by 18.
Thats considering Arsenal are widely talked about as using youth players, we still buy them, thats life. The players who actually grew up at Arsenal who make it into the senior team are VERY few and far between.
Chelsea, youth players, lol. Sorry where is this magical team of all youth players coming through to make a team, oh yes, Utd. O'shea, Brown, Scholes, Giggs, and how many actually brought through the ranks players have Utd had compared to Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool in the past decade, more than any of them.
Say Brown is a bit crap as a starter, fine, he is, he's adequate cover and better than the cover Arsenal, Liverpool, Villa/City have at right back. O'shea, much the same, has infact played many games in years you've won titles, what more do you want.
A GENUINE problem is the fact that Diaby, Song, Theo, Denilson AREN'T good enough and we HAVEN'T won things with them in the team.
Complaining because your guys are infact good enough and have won things, multiple times, with them involved, is ridiculous, even by this forums standards of complaing about your own team.
If Utd's first choice back 4 was O'shea, Brown, Evans, Rafael, I'd agree that UTD had become very weak, but thats the emergency backup line up, with the first team being Evra, Vidic, Rio, whoever.