An England schoolboy international, Evans was a defender who was a long way down the pecking order at Liverpool in the 1960s and 1970s—he also spent the summer of 1973 in the North American Soccer League with the Philadelphia Atoms.

[1] On 28 January 1994, Graeme Souness quit as Liverpool manager in the wake of a shock FA Cup exit at the hands of Bristol City.

[2] For the 1994–95 season, Evans strengthened his side with the addition of defenders John Scales and Phil Babb as well as young winger Mark Kennedy.

He also gave further first-team opportunities to youngsters Steve McManaman, Jamie Redknapp and Robbie Fowler, who at the time were among the hottest prospects in English football.

Liverpool, meanwhile, had to settle for third place in the league; any lingering hopes of title glory were finished off towards the end of April with a shock defeat by Coventry City.

Evans strengthened his side that was built around McManaman and Fowler, with the acquisition of Czech midfielder Patrik Berger over the summer of 1996, but by the end of the 1996–97 season all the talk around Anfield was about a promising 17-year-old striker, Michael Owen, who had shown tremendous potential in a handful of games for the club.

They had also collected 3 points fewer overall, finishing with 68, with much of the press berating the club for a lack of discipline off the field, dubbing Evans' squad the Spice Boys for their lifestyles off the pitch, which affected their performances on it.

With Stan Collymore moving to Aston Villa in the close season, Evans did not want to throw Owen into the first team, so he brought in midfield hardman Paul Ince, and legendary German striker Karlheinz Riedle to partner the prolific Robbie Fowler.

In 1998 Liverpool's longstanding Boot Room coach Ronnie Moran retired and was set to be replaced by Gerrard Houllier for the 1998–99 season onwards.

His comeback finally came in March 2000 when he became joint caretaker manager of Fulham alongside Karlheinz Riedle until Jean Tigana was given the job a month later.