It's not mis-proven at all, the last minute out of nowhere signing is I'll give you that, it's a SSN trope they like to hype up which never really happens, that came about after the VDV deal.This is a much dis-proven myth though, innit.... It just sounds 'good' cos Levy got a bit of a media rep from the VDV deal.
Just look at our last 3 summers..... Deals have been spread throughout the window.
You tell me; how many deadline day deals have been done in the last 3 years?
Tottenham Hotspur - All transfers
This page shows all ever transfers of the Tottenham, including arrivals, departures and loans. It also displays the transfer fees.www.transfermarkt.co.uk
In fact, someone crunched the numbers a couple of years ago and less than 20% (15%-ish iirc) of our total purchases under Levy came on the last day.
btw, who are these Brighton players that were no-brainers for us that we let slide? ...Wolves? ......WH?
VIlla only got Coutinho due to the 'buddy-system'; his agent made that quite clear.
Spurs leaving it late though is just fact, we do sign players throughout the window yes, and yet year after year, as fans we are sat at the edge of our seats on 31st August/January, praying for transfer news because there are major deficiencies in the squad if we are wanting to compete at the level that Levy wants us to believe we are competing at.
We either are trying to sign players every deadline day due to these deficiencies, which would mean that there is a frustrating groundhog day occurring twice a year every year, or we aren't, which would be even worse because it would suggest that people at the club are either oblivious to the deficiencies or simply don't care about them...
Whatever reason you put this down to, Levy haggling for the best deal, clubs not wanting to sell until then, whatever, doesn't alter the fact that every year it happens and in the meantime there have been multiple transfers made between other clubs that would have addressed our issues.
% of our completed transfers done on deadline day doesn't really prove anything, as it doesn't account for the instances where we've left trying to sign a player until then and then failed to complete, also 15% falling on one day out of 3 months actually does suggest proportionally more happening on that day than any other doesn't it?
Your use of the term no-brainer is a bit leading, especially at Spurs when you look at how our big money signings have generally panned out you have to accept that there is no such thing as a no brainer. You can believe that Coutinho simply had his heart set on living in Birmingham because an old work mate is managing them and simply wouldn't countenance joining any other club if you like, I don't. I think if we'd have gone for him and offered the same package as Villa did he'd be playing for us now.
As for the rest of the clubs mentioned, they have tons of players between them that would improve us, and they didn't all come though their academies so they were signed, presumably whilst we were distracted thinking we could actually compete with the biggest clubs in the world.