For me Matt le Tissier takes the cake, managing to score 25 goals from midfield in the 1993/94 season for a Southampton team that finished 18th. Other strong contenders:
- Luis Suarez 13/14, honestly maybe the best individual season a player’s ever had in the league. 31 goals and 11 assists in 33 games in a Liverpool team that was largely Europa League level aside from Gerrard and Sturridge.
- Kevin Phillips 99/00, scoring 30 goals and winning the European Golden Shoe for newly promoted Sunderland.
Who’ve you got?
Suarez 2013-2014. I am not even going back by stats here- i think there was a genuine quality difference between him and the rest of the players - although not widely accepted at that time due to him being in Liverpool and his onfield antics , it was pretty clear that not only was Suarez worldclass, but he was also arguably a top 3 player in the world between 2013-2017. The rest of the Liverpool squad was either rookies, old veterans or bang average player compared to him.
I don’t think Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar, Bale, Iniesta etc where in a situation where they were essentially a 90+ player and the rest of the team had no one above 83-84.