02 Dec 2025 22:56:37
Roy Evans. Loved the guy. I think we were margins away from his team becoming a dominant force alongside United. The dreadful loss in the FA Cup final burst the balloon, and all belief in his system was gone.
But when Souness was blowing up the club, every fan and pundit seemed to be calling out for Roy to take over - and he did a pretty good job with us.


So, my question is: why did he never get a job at a top club again?
Did his sacking break him, or did he have obvious flaws that idiots like me could not spot?

1.) 02 Dec 2025
02 Dec 2025 23:25:09
Fairly sure Ed001 said the sacking broke him. The nature of it was pretty effing brutal to be honest. "Oh yeah Roy, we got this great French bloke to come in and replace Ronnie Moran. Except he's not going to replace Ronnie Moran as your assistant, he's coming in as 'joint manager'. Isn't that a great idea? Now he's going to repeatedly undermine you in the most petty ways possible, but he is joint manager so he's not actually overruling you. Actually would you mind reading between the lines and sodding off cos I'm David Moores and I'm too spineless to actually sack you? "

I find it hard to really judge how good or bad he was. We played good football and despite Houllier's "we need 5 years" nonsense, we were probably only 3 signings away from being challengers. I'd nearly go as far as to say a keeper of Ali's calibre might've done it. We'd probably at least made the CL places in 96/ 97.

That being said, he struggled to buy a decent center back or goalkeeper. Some of that was down to the structure above him being piss, but at the same time he gave James way too many chances and spent the guts of a year trying to wrangle a work permit for Friedel instead of moving on to another target. And when the club did spend money, and big money for the time, on a CB, we bought Phil Babb.

2.) 02 Dec 2025
03 Dec 2025 00:02:07
I’m 50 years old, Roy Evan’s is one of my favourite managers. Greame Souness gets some underserved stick in my opinion, he took over am ageing team who are well past their sell by date and tried to make some changes that were needed.

Fair enough the wrong ones but who ever came I. Was going to fail because of the success we’d had. A bit like moyes taking over from ferguson.

3.) 02 Dec 2025
03 Dec 2025 00:23:19
He did have quite a few flaws as a manager, and although we played good football generally we weren’t as good defensively as we were going forwards from what I can remember. Spice boys tag was difficult to shift, probably correctly.

Why did he never manage top level elsewhere, probably because he was such a one club man and he was either typecast or didn’t really have the heart to do it. He popped up occasionally as a pundit and as a manager afterwards but it just didn’t seem to suit him. He was a humble guy.

4.) 03 Dec 2025
03 Dec 2025 01:00:55
Wasn't Evans more of a coach than a manager? I heard that he was too close to the players and maybe not enough of a disciplinarian. And United had SAF keeping his players in check, at the time.

5.) 03 Dec 2025
03 Dec 2025 01:16:11
Great read rhat, something red, I can't remember much from that period but you must be right!

6.) 03 Dec 2025
03 Dec 2025 01:45:04
That was it Rigsby. A few local lads mixed in with players like Ruddock, and the era that it was socially, so he had his hands full. Very knowledgeable coach and decent man, but he was up against Fergie and that Man Utd team.

7.) 03 Dec 2025
03 Dec 2025 02:00:17
Sound lad Roy Evans, proper Scouser and a member of the group of best football minds that you could find in any boot room in the world in the history of the game. Dreadfully undervalued when pushed out by the club but kept his dignity and deserves respect from all of us.

{Ed001's Note - lovely guy was Roy, so nice, but Moores shat on him from a great height. Then he ended up working with Swindon Town and Wales afterwards. Waste of one of the great coaches of all time.}

8.) 03 Dec 2025
03 Dec 2025 02:24:39
He did 2 major things wrong in my eyes, 1. playing 3 at the back, moving away from the traditional Liverpool method never made sense and 2. He didn't crack down on the players. We were the spice boys under him.

{Ed001's Note - Moores wouldn't let him crack down, he would constantly undermine him as he thought he was mates with the players. When they got fines, Moores would cancel them etc. He would be in the dressing room at matches etc as well interfering. Even told him there was no money for a defender and then handed him Collymoore instead.}

9.) 03 Dec 2025
03 Dec 2025 07:02:30
If roy Evans hadve had schemical in goal, who we should've had during souness era, instead of james I've no doubt he would've won at least 1 league.

10.) 03 Dec 2025
03 Dec 2025 07:24:16
Roy Evans had us playing some nice attacking football, he was too nice of a man to compete with certain players but then the hierarchy decided that we needed a joint manager except it wasnt a joint manager really. he ended up playing 2nd fiddle . one of the worst decisions ever . ruined him.

11.) 03 Dec 2025
03 Dec 2025 10:01:18
I don’t agree with the one keeper away from winning the league. We weren’t consistent enough under Evans and whilst the football was nice, it wasn’t clinical enough at points. The back four was decent but far from great.

12.) 03 Dec 2025
03 Dec 2025 11:01:17
We made some horrendous mistakes back then. Not breaking the bank for Roy Keane, to me was the natural heir to Souness felt like a huge error, signing a visibly washed up Paul Ince (who was absolutely awful), the whole joint manager thing.

Could go on for days on it. Actually makes me appreciate that FSG are competent and quietly in the background.

David Moores ran the place like a social club, not a football club. Roy Evans is a good man and a good coach who was let down by an imbecile of an owner.

13.) 03 Dec 2025
03 Dec 2025 12:18:29
Really decent man, Roy was despite all the horrible things Moores did to him. Still has no bad word to say about Moores, his woes as LFC managers etc. Kept his dignity and honor intact. A true gent, IMO.

As for the whole "joint manager" stuff, I remember that vividly. As soon as that got announced, I knew he was gone cos I had heard of the position of "assistant coach", never heard of "joint manager". That looked/ sounded spooky from the off.

14.) 03 Dec 2025
03 Dec 2025 12:31:14
Doubt you’ll hear a bad word against him.
Lovely fella, great coach, good manager.

Easy to look back with hindsight and say he should have had more discipline. We played great football always competed. Had a great time as a fan under Roy.

15.) 03 Dec 2025
03 Dec 2025 09:34:41
Seeing as PegLeg has let the cat out of the bag on birthdays I may as well roll with it, I'm 58, well, next week I will be, if God allows! (I don't mean Fowler btw! ) . Roy Evans is one of my favourite people that ever walked through the gates of LFC.

To say he was poorly treated would be a mega massive understatement. Anyway, I Can't wait to see ED25s numerical advantage. ????.

{Ed025's Note - im only a young looking 67 SG, enjoying my retirement and playing a lot of golf mate (badly), i agree on Roy though...always came across as a very nice guy..

16.) 03 Dec 2025
03 Dec 2025 13:43:31
VV Ince was a good enough player at the time but he was in love with himself. Not what we needed from the captain when we were coming up short. The highlights of us beating Arsenal 4-0 at the end of 97/ 98 when they'd already won the league are on YouTube. Ince scored twice (I think) and celebrates like he's won the bloody World Cup single handedly. You're expecting that guy to drive you on when things are down? Nah.

I think Evans made Macca the captain ahead of the following season, but I could be wrong.

17.) 03 Dec 2025
03 Dec 2025 15:40:18
I'd say you enjoy the golf alright ED25! Especially the 19th! ????????!

{Ed025's Note - its my favourite hole SG and where im at my best mate.. :)

18.) 03 Dec 2025
03 Dec 2025 16:52:31
Roy was mr Liverpool, should have been brought back to the club in some capacity after GH was moved on. Treated like Cnut if you ask me.

19.) 03 Dec 2025
03 Dec 2025 17:27:56
It’s really great to see all these positive posts about Roy. I thought him a pretty brave coach: I think the first to play 3 at the back in England? Or maybe John Gregory’s Villa were first?
John Scales was a good cb signing, Phil Babb less so (an early lesson in the dangers of signing a player on the back of a good World Cup) .
Playing Rob Jones as left wing back, and John Barnes as DM were bold moves.

Fowler and Macca never quite the same after he left.
Always felt it was a mistake to bin him, when what we actually needed was a proper sporting director handling transfers.

He should have had the backing to ship out the Souness signings of James and Ruddock (who single handedly let us be monstered in a European game, after which Roy said you can’t win in Europe if you defend like that) .