Gooch shouldn't get in an all-time world (or England) XI, obviously, but he's getting some quite harsh treatment here from some of our Australian correspondents. Their relative disregard for him is perhaps unsurprising since he had some well-publicised failures against Australia.
But his record against West Indies, about whose fast bowling nothing really needs to be said, was pretty outstanding: he averaged a shade under 45 in 26 Tests between 1980 and 1991. Topped off by that unbelievable 154* against Ambrose, Marshall, Walsh and Patterson on a very difficult Headingley pitch.
No disrespect to Taylor and Langer, both of whom were very fine players indeed, but I don't agree that Gooch was inferior to either of them. If I remember rightly, SJS makes a pretty interesting case for saying that Gooch (certainly in the latter part of his career) was the finest opening batsman of the modern era, above even Gavaskar.