Liverpool FC Forum

Roy Evan’s reign at Liverpool was very much a Jekyll and Hyde turn of events, one week Liverpool were magic and the next Liverpool were tragic. Roy’s two main problems were his signings and his lack of authoritarianism over the players and these two flaws in Evans’ management led to his downfall.

Liverpool under Evans played some fantastic football, the type of football that seems very much extinct in the Premiership these days, the type of attacking and fluent football that’s worth waking up on a Saturday morning, the type of football which mesmerises one and fills one with a large sense of anticipation, but with this somewhat beautiful football came inconsistency on a regular basis, you always knew Liverpool would play amazing football under Evans, but you could never predict if Liverpool were going to be brilliant or shockingly poor, our inconsistency must have made a fair few bookies an awful lot of money under Evans.  We would beat Arsenal one week and lose to Coventry the next and whilst we achieved high finishes under Roy, I felt he could not take the team any further than what he had done, unless he improved his tactical approach to the transfer market and his stamped his authority on players like Paul Ince who was marching around the dressing room calling himself “Guv’nor”, it was only a matter of time before Roy’s number was up, you could just feel it.

I can remember when he had to break up a drunken brawl between Neil Ruddock and Robbie Fowler, which resulted in Roy displaying a nice shiner on the dugout, you just knew something was wrong in the dressing room and you got the feeling that Roy just didn’t have the harsh streak in him to tackle these players, instead he let wild parties continue, lax attitudes in training continue and is it any wonder the board sat back and lost confidence in Roy Evans? All was not harmonious on and off the pitch during Roy’s period in charge.

There is also the case that Roy wasn’t backed in the transfer market, this is probably true to an extent, after all he wanted to bring some of the world’s best defenders to the club like Thuram and Desially, but the board refused to allow Evans to speak to these players on the grounds of the astronomical wages both players would have acquired had they signed for us. This might not be backing Evans, but it’s not a wise idea to sign these players and then plunge into debt like Leeds? With hindsight, it was probably the wrong decision to place a cap on Evans’ transfer desires, but he spent over £8m on Stan Collymore (what could have been) and I believe he signed Scales and Babb for a combined total of £7.5m. That’s backing to me.

I will have to agree with people who say that Evans was treated unkindly by the hierarchy in his final chapter as Liverpool manager and this is true, it was very cowardly of the board to make a duel managerial partnership to effectively force Evans out of the club, the board knew Gerard had different methods than Roy and you knew instantly when the duel partnership was formed that Roy would walk sooner or later, you had that gut feeling. I cried when Roy left, mind I was only 13, but I cried, because I knew how much Liverpool meant to Roy and the way in which the board conducted themselves in the handling of Roy Evans was disgraceful and that’s probably the one thing I will never forgive David Moores and the board for doing.

Roy had his chance and he couldn’t handle the immense expectations of a club of Liverpool’s richness and tradition. He lacked the few qualities needed in a manager to become a championship winning manager, he tried, he did well within his mean, but he couldn’t quite take us all the way, he rectified some of  problems Souness’ managerial period offered Liverpool, but fundamentally he just couldn’t quite cut it, if Roy had built a strong defence and shipped out the players who had their heads up their own bottoms, perhaps Evans would still be manager, but he has gone, but he won’t be forgotten or ignored, he will always be remembered in the nicest possible way, by every Liverpool fan, but I wouldn’t sack Benitez, Benitez has some flaws, but fundamentally Rafa has all the qualities that Roy lacked, it would suicide for us to turn back time and reappoint Roy.