Was Roy Evans That Bad A Manager?

[05 Milan]

Does anyone think getting rid of danny murphy was a mistake?

 

No.

[Cork Red]

I was a big fan of danny murphy ever since he got the winner in old trafford in 00.

[23_Carra_Gold]

I was a big fan of danny murphy ever since he got the winner in old trafford in 00.

 

Doesn't mean we were wrong to sell him. Mascher, Xabi, Stevie, Sissoko, Hammann are all players he would have been behind since we let him go.

[Royal Family]

For me, the 1996 Cup Final summed up the Evans era - we were abject that day, utterly toothless and overwhelmed by he situation. Evans used, for several years, to alternate between Jason McAteer and Rob Jones at left-wing back, which says all you need to know. With the players we had, especially Robbie and Macca in their prime we should have won the league under him.

 

I also remember Marcel Desailly in the summer of 1998: 'can you really imagine me playing for Roy Evans?' Royston just had no respect in the wider game of football - Desailly said that if he has known Houllier would be coming in later that summer, he would have jumped at the chance to play for Liverpool.

[Sangria]

Roy Evans was too soft, otherwise we might've fared better under him than we did. I think if pre-heart attack Houllier was in charge we'd have won the league.

 

A very good argument but if we had a manager in the Sounes mould would we have won the League with the same squad. No.

Was he a bad manager no but he did have a lot to live up to.

[House of Dirk]

The players didnt give Evans the respect he deserved. It was rollercoaster football though, with the amazing stuff tempered out by the utter turd we dished out at times. Just too nice a bloke to really cut it, and ended up getting walked over by certain players. Didnt enjoy much success in the transfer market although one or two did flourish after he left, namely Murphy and Paddy Berger (who did have a blazing start). Houllier is the man charged with our revival, although 2002 was his nadir. I think we could have perhaps kept Murphy for another season, all things considered, given the number of changes and injuries we had in Rafa's first season.

[jamespp]

It was such a winnable league in the 90s, the league was a poorer standard then, Blackburn won the league with Jason Wilcox, Tim Sherwood & Stuart Ripley? Newcastle were a very good team then but they had John Beresford, Darren Peacock, Steve Howey in Defence, Les Ferdinand, Keith Gillespie & Robert Lee were star players! Only the Mancs were what you would call decent

 

I think the team Liverpool team of 2008 would win the Premiership most years in the 90s

[Guest LFD]

Sherwood was a very good player.

[Red Phoenix]

Where did the coin game story originate from? That sounds insane. How did they manage to get away with that on the pitch too? Didn't they get found out quickly?

[Randy Marsh]

What do you expect, they had more important things to be doing like passing a pound coin around during a match to see who ends up with it at the final whistle and has to get the drinks in that night.

 

That story sickens me. Shanks and Bob wouldve turned in their graves. Arseholes like Ruddok etc, taking the piss out the club and the Liverpool Way (Sounds like the two cunts we have in charge now). Fuckin Razor my arse, fat shithouse gobshite fraud more like

[Randy Marsh]

Where did the coin game story originate from? That sounds insane. How did they manage to get away with that on the pitch too? Didn't they get found out quickly?

 

Fat arse was bragging about in on Soccer AM years ago. Obviously they lapped it up and found it hilarious. Prick.

[isr]

The more i think about it getting rid of roy evans was a mistake.By the time houllier was done we were even further away from winning the premiership and he did have a vindictive agenda against robbie fowler.Surely im not the only one who feels this way.

 

Disagree.

 

I think people have far too rose-tinted memories of Roy's sides. They weren't as good as some like to reminise.

 

Its easier to show some flashes of sexy football when you collectively absolve yourselves from the responsibility of winning anything. And thats effectively what we did, under Roy's tenure. It was like Arsenal today - except we weren't as good, and we didn't get as close (as Wenger's current undercooked crop does).

 

Besides, for every good game, I seem to remember games where we were totally ineffective. Where Jamie Redknapp would pad his Alonso-like passing stats with his 1000th sideways or backwards pass (as if he was playing rugby, not soccer). Where McManaman would get the ball in an advanced position, slow down and let the defender catch up, beat him, then whack the ball into the crowd. Etc, etc.

 

Bottom line: our current team can play better football, and if they played our 90's side in a series of 10 matches (to even out the luck factor), would totally pulverise them. And I mean pulverise!!!

 

Houillier? However his last 2 seasons ended, he was a necessary stepping stone. He turned us into winners again, even if only briefly. We got the taste back.

[Redshadow]

Jamesmpp, the Liverpool team of today wouldn't just win the Premiership in the 90's they'd walk it every year except against the Manc' team in 1993/1994 and 1999/2000 (their treble team had lots of lucky escapes but the 2000 one was good) and possibly the Arsenal side of 1991 which as I remember it caused us a lot of trouble back then but put it this way if we had the team we had now playing in the 1990/1991 season against THAT Arsenal side then they would have lost at least 3 games that year and not the one they did in the League (against Chelsea) as THIS Liverpool side would have whacked them twice;

 

And make no mistake, I really do HATE that Arsenal side as it took away our most recent title and thus who have a special place in my 'most hated' list for that along with winning the most one sided game I've ever seen when we absolutely battered them on March 3rd 1991 a week after Kenny left and lost to a Merson goal - I've always thought THAT game was the REAL start of our downfall as with the combination of Kenny having gone, us losing the leadership of the league to them because of it, the indifferent performances that followed AND it being our first home defeat of the 1990's (where everything that had always been reliable before, Barnes' finishing, Beardsley's passing, Rush's goals and our defenses coolness under fire all just seemed to fail/evaporate at once); Looking back, that game above all others back then just had 'end of an era' written all over it and sadly, so it proved.

 

As I said earlier though, I think we'd have won that league and all the others in the 90's with possibly 2 exceptions as our current team is a class above anything back then and it just goes to show how good Rafa' really is as a coach that he's now put us in a position almost the same as the one we had back then (i.e. challenging regularly at the top of the table with a CHANCE no more of winning it) when faced by not one but THREE teams of equal strength/ability and superior (in one way or another) financial resources. Either way, getting our 19th title after 19 years sounds like poetic justice to me (to say nothing of what it'll do to the Mancs if we DO do it) and you never know do you, Istanbul taught us that anything is possible and with Rafa' it really is.......

[GJM]

Have to agree with isr on this one. Roy Evans' time in charge pretty much coincided with my peak of travelling to games (some money in my pocket + no family ties being main reasons) and, for every entertaining performance I can think of at least 1 where we were awful. It was a definite improvement from the Souness years as (where we got one decent performance for every 3 or 4 poor ones) but it was far from being a golden age.

 

I was at his first game in charge (a 2-2 draw away at Norwich in February, I think) and I remember being very excited at the first game of his first full season as manager when we thrashed Palace 6-1 away (when we played with 3 at the back and McManaman in a free role behind the front 2). It seemed full of promise. But the consistency was never there and the good memories are forever tainted by the bad.

 

The 90s were LFC's Dark Ages.

[Paul]

We played some turgid stuff under Evans too. Games where the players didn't give a flying fuck.

 

Agreed. We put in loads of awful performances under him. In fact my abiding sense of his reign is of dross rather than quality, despite the great forwards we had.

[silverlining]

The more i think about it getting rid of roy evans was a mistake.By the time houllier was done we were even further away from winning the premiership and he did have a vindictive agenda against robbie fowler.Surely im not the only one who feels this way.

 

 

By the time Houllier was done, we'd re-established ourselves as a properly-run team that was once more a known and respected name in Europe.

 

The treble season was a crucial turning point for this club, and shouldn't be underestimated.

[dave u]

For me, the 1996 Cup Final summed up the Evans era - we were abject that day, utterly toothless and overwhelmed by he situation. Evans used, for several years, to alternate between Jason McAteer and Rob Jones at left-wing back, which says all you need to know. With the players we had, especially Robbie and Macca in their prime we should have won the league under him.

 

I also remember Marcel Desailly in the summer of 1998: 'can you really imagine me playing for Roy Evans?' Royston just had no respect in the wider game of football - Desailly said that if he has known Houllier would be coming in later that summer, he would have jumped at the chance to play for Liverpool.

 

That just tells me what I already knew, that Desailly is a fucking arrogant bellend. Fuck him and his French Garth Crooks impressions on BBC.

[MLB]

Evans was a weak manager, which means that he wasn't a good manager. He was relatively successful domestically though when compared to those who came after him.

[WaltonRed]

Woeful is the only word.

 

Not all his fault though, a weak chairman and some players who should of been shot.

[redrosetints]

The more i think about it getting rid of roy evans was a mistake.By the time houllier was done we were even further away from winning the premiership and he did have a vindictive agenda against robbie fowler.Surely im not the only one who feels this way.

 

Are you Mad ? Evans was manager at a time when we were still able to flex our financial muscle, breaking the british transfer record for Collymore, having at the begining of his tenure paid a record for a defender, he only had United to beat and yet he still ended up 4th. Evans was a nice man and we played some nice footie, but the lack of success was criminal with the talent in that team. Major embarrssments in the UEFA cup were also poor poor poor.

 

If ever a manager should have been putting in a consistent title challenge, it was him, loadsofmoney, loadsof homegrown talent and only one real team to beat (with honourable mention to Souness of course).

[redrosetints]

My god you're right. My memory must be fucked.

 

Here's a list of his signings:

 

Mark Gayle

Michael Stensgaard

Phil Babb

John Scales

Mark Kennedy

Stan Collymore

Stephen Pears

Jason McAteer

Patrik Berger

Nicky Rizzo

Bjørn Tore Kvarme

Øyvind Leonhardsen

Paul Ince

Danny Murphy

KarlHeinz Riedle

Jørgen Nielsen

Haukur I. Gudnason

Brad Friedel

Sean Dundee

Steve Staunton

Vegard Heggem

 

Nicky Rizzo was at Franchise MK until quite recently I believe. Whilst Alan Navarro, who was a youth team full back in Evans time IIRC is still there.

[JohnnyH]

What do you expect, they had more important things to be doing like passing a pound coin around during a match to see who ends up with it at the final whistle and has to get the drinks in that night.

 

 

Yeah we really had some bellends playing for us then. Every time I see that fat prick Ruddocks face on tv I want to slap it. He was and is everything that's wrong about football. Selfish, egotistical, twat.

[Dicko]

Yeah we really had some bellends playing for us then. Every time I see that fat prick Ruddocks face on tv I want to slap it. He was and is everything that's wrong about football. Selfish, egotistical, twat.

 

Indeed he was. I remember two incidences with that fat cunt.

 

1) When he trashed his Porsche pissed in Southport, then rang the coppers the next day to say it was burgled. They couldn't prove it but the coppers knew the stroke he was trying to pull.

 

2) When he got into an argument with that Norwegian lad it may have been Tore Andre Flo's brother. The Norwegian lad said he was an arrogant, overweight waste of a footballer or something like that. Then that prick responded in the mirror by saying he's wrong because "I'm richer than you that makes me right. I could buy and sell you, so show me the respect I deserve" or something along those lines to paraphrase.

 

Utter, utter cock.

[Red Mist]

During Evan's era we easily had the 2nd best squad in the country behind the mancs but not once did we get near them in the league. Evans was blessed to have players like Fowler, Macca, Rob Jones, Redknapp etc. but he achieved nothing with them.

A very nice bloke and tremedous servent to Liverpool, but a crap manager. Now the Premiership is so competitive and difficult, it makes me sick to think we never challenged the mancs back in those days when the callibre of opponents was largely mediocre.

[23CARRAGOLD]

During Evan's era we easily had the 2nd best squad in the country behind the mancs but not once did we get near them in the league. Evans was blessed to have players like Fowler, Macca, Rob Jones, Redknapp etc. but he achieved nothing with them.

A very nice bloke and tremedous servent to Liverpool, but a crap manager. Now the Premiership is so competitive and difficult, it makes me sick to think we never challenged the mancs back in those days when the callibre of opponents was largely mediocre.

 

 

I agree with you 99%, I would say we had arguably the best squad in the country wasted by a totally inept manager. People may or may not agree but it has been my belief for a number of years that a proper manager with that squad would have won the league.

 

He got them playing very nice football and all that but when it mattered they shit out as in the F.A Cup Final and the Cup Winners Cup Semi.