You can point to Neville, O'Shea, Origi, or Traore and downplay the importance of winning trophies, but they all have several team mates who were deemed world class because they won trophies. At the end of the day, there are exceptions to the rule of course, but every individual award shortlist is far more objective than any fans feelings, and players ranking in these lists is heavily influenced by their teams success. Most fans aren't supporters of teams who win the major honours, ours included, so they will discredit these awards so they can subjectively rate their favourites higher.
You don't necessarily have to win trophies to be a world class player, though, and you would be hard pressed to find a more objective list than the Ballon D'or shortlist to list the seasons world class performers, a list in which Saka and Odegaard are named. So for me they are definitely world class, but at the same time, if our players want to rank higher on these lists and win the individual awards, then they need to win trophies.
