@balaks - Leaving a line under the above.
What transfer deals do you attribute as a success for Levy? The obvious ones recently -
recent - Alli/Dembele/Eriksen/Sanchez/Rose/Walker/Lloris, etc. - older - Van der Vaart/Bale, etc. so absolutely tons
Not just purely in a sense of purchasing for £X and the value not being greater than £X. There is no question that Spurs make some great signings and sales but to assume that some mysterious Levy-Factor is behind all of them is disingenuous.
Berbatov, Carrick, Modric, Bale : These players went for a value that several teams would have paid. Taking all of them to the wire probably gave him an ego stroke but I don't think he secured a huge amount of cash by acting how he did.
Similarly for the purchases of Alli, Eriksen, Son etc. He's not getting into hugely complex bidding wars and coming out on top. The scouting is obscenely good. But the prices paid didn't undercut anyone else. There's no mastery of negotiation tactics on show.