Too many players injured, retired and of course Kenny resigned which didn't help.
The mancs picked up quickly on the changing face of football, splashed the cash on two of the best players around : Keane at £3.75m and Cuntona for something like £1.2m off those idiots and then champions Leeds. You can't do that anymore, no top club will sell their best players to rivals for what were hardly phenomenal amounts even back then. They bought Pallister for £2m, Bruce for a bargain £800k and pinched Ince off West Ham for £1m. They got Hughes back for £1.5m, Schmeichel for a bargain £500k and Irwin for a bargain £625k. That would be like us getting Ronaldo, Vidic and Evra off the mancs, Fabregas off Arsenal, Cech, Carvalho and Drogba off Chelsea, and Barry off villa - all for maybe £120m. They struck at the right time, brought in a lot of the right players and they gelled. All other teams were caught out, we were being dismantled by Souness, Arsenal were caught napping, Leeds had sold their best player to the mancs and the rest of the league wasn't up to it either.
I think Evans deserves more credit than he gets, he may only have finished third (twice) and fourth (twice), but bear in mind what Souness did and it was a poorer starting point than Houllier or Benitez faced. He couldn't take us to the next level, neither could Houllier and Rafa is beginning to look like he won't make the step unless he gets a massive transfer budget and even then I fear he may not change his targets much