4 seasons in charge - competing against (in Mancs, Blackburn and Newcastle) three of the biggest spending sides in the world, AND the genius of wenger, he got 3rd, 4th, 3rd, 4th - in other words - a better record than Rafa in his first 4 years.
Absolute bollocks. English clubs' spending was massively dwarved by Italian clubs and quickly caught up by Spanish sides. Newcastle broke the world transfer record but that wasn't symptomatic of them at all. English records were set by Manchester United who were struggling to match their continental rivals. Lazio, Atletico Madrid, Inter Milan, Real Madrid - these teams started running away with the transfer market. When Manchester United signed Dwight Yorke for a 'massive' £12m, Vieri went for a bit more. The next season, after having just as good a season as Yorke, he was sold for £32m. Spanish clubs like Betis were blowing United out of the water for Denilson. Italian clubs that traditionally had many big signings (mid 90s, around £5-6m) were suddenly ramping it up far beyond traditional football inflation. It's no coincidence that during the 90s, most clubs were signing players from Scandanavia or each other.
It wasn't that Italians or Spaniards weren't good enough, it's just those that teams could afford wouldn't come to England or their clubs were offered bigger sums from other teams. Barcelona wanted to sign McManaman for £12m and signed Rivaldo instead. We couldn't even spend that much for our entire transfer budget.
Wenger didn't come till September 1996. Blackburn were irrelevant by then.
That season, they finished above us on goal difference. The season after, he won the title. Blackburn were still irrelevant.
The season after that, United won the treble, Arsenal finished second and we were a distant 7th, two points ahead of Derby. Not only were Blackburn irrelevant, they were relegated.
Newcastle were also nowhere to be seen. During this season was Evans' last season.
If anything, the matter of big spending English clubs came during Houllier's era, not Evans'.
Evans was well financed. We broke the transfer record with Collymore. When was the last time we even came close to breaking the British transfer record?
Evans was a good manager but fatally flawed in his discipline. He did bring us our last real title challenge, though it's telling that even then, that season we finished 4th. The closest title race since was when Chelsea lead the table for so long but ended up finishing third.
It's getting very boring seeing you put in snide digs about Rafa any way you can. It's so blatant but you don't stop. I don't get what your point is, that Evans' finishes are somehow better than Rafa's? You want him back so we can...finish third and fourth some more? Or you want to challenge for the title till March and get knocked out of the cups so we can be like Arsenal and go "oh, at least we played well".
Evans was a good manager in an era that wasn't as dominated by money. Roy Keane still hadn't broken the £50,000 barrier for his salary, we still had realistic transfer fees spread amongst the league.
If he came back now, God only knows how much damage he'd do to his reputation. He's a great guy and desperately unlucky not to have won the title for us at least once but it's telling that the players that won those titles for United are all managers and coaches or even still playing, while ours under Evans are nowhere to be seen, James and (to some extent) Fowler excepted.