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All the players in your squad have to be bought by auction. You have a set amount of cash at the start of the season on which you can spend on players. You will use this to bid on players.
There will only be one auction for each premier league player. Only one team in your league can own each player. This is one of fundamental rules which makes Next Goal Wins different from other, standard fantasy football competitions.

Bidding on players is quite simple even if it can be a little daunting at first.
Select the player:
You can select a player from a large number of places. Almost everywhere a player is displayed you can click on their name to select them. Just click on their name to bring up their details page. Typical pages to start looking are: any of the pages in the 'Players' menu or any of the pages in the 'Auctions' menu.
Find the bid form:
The bid form is always at the bottom of a player's details page. It is the box marked 'Bid for this player'.
Enter a bid:
The bid is a proxy bid which means the maximum you are willing to pay for them. You will not necessarily pay this much, but if someone bids higher than your initial bid then the site will automatically bid higher for you up until this price you specify.
Click the 'Place Bid' button:
Once you click the 'Place Bid' button the details you entered will be checked and you will be directed to a page telling you the result of your bid. Make sure you read that page as it is possible that your bid was not successful for very good reasons.
There are several reasons you will not be able to bid on a player and several restrictions to the bids you can place. The 'bid form' will tell you if you are not allowed to bid on a player.
The player is already owned by another team
If a player has already been won via auction by another team (or indeed by you) then you will not be allowed to bid on them unless that manager has put them on the 'transfer list' or 'released' them.
Your budget
You have fixed budget for the whole season. This is the maximum you are allowed to spend on players. You cannot overspend. When bidding on players it is your 'proxy bid' which is taken into account in these calculations as this is the maximum you could end up spending on a player. If you try and put in a bid which will put you over-budget then a window will pop up informing you that you are trying to spend too much.
Squad size
There is a maximum number of players you are allowed in your squad. This forces you to pick your players wisely and not just keep bidding on players and hoping some of them turn out to be good. It will normally be high enough to have a good amount of backup though to give you cover for injury, suspension and bad form. You are not allowed to bid on more players than would put you over this limit if you were to win all your auctions. If you have already reached your squad limit, the bid form will state that you have reached this limit and not show you the bid fields and button.
Maximum number of players from a club
You can only own a limited number of players from each premier league club. This restricts you from just bidding on players from the big clubs and forces you to look at players from the smaller clubs as well. This also means you cannot bid on more than this number of players from one club. The calculation is: if the number of players you own from that club + the number of players you are bidding from that club >= the limit on the number of players from any one club then you are not allowed to bid for that player.
Auction cooldown
There is an enforced cooldown period after you bid on a player. You cannot bid again on the same player for 15 minutes. This is prevent 'nudging' of prices up towards the proxy limit. Take this into account when bidding on a player as you cannot imediately go back and change your bid.
There are also a few restrictions on the quantities you are allowed to bid.
Minimum bid increment
You have to place your bid a certain amount higher than the previous bid. Think of the situation in real life where one club put in a offer to Liverpool for Steven Gerrad of £30,000,000 and then another club came in to beat that offer with an offer of £30,000,001. They would just get laughed at. The same applies in Next Goal Wins.
Bid precision
The bids you place have to be a multiple of a certain number. For example, if the current bid is £2,000,000 and the minimum bid increment is £500,000 then you are allowed to put in a bid of £2,500,000 but that also means you can put in a bid of £2,500,242 which is a bit of a silly amount. This 'bid precision' restriction prevents you from doing that by making the auction price go up in neat amounts. If you try and break this rule then a pop-up window will appear asking you to change your bid.
Auctions will not end before the 'initial auction deadline' set for your team. This is designed to give all the managers in your league a chance to join, get bidding and start to settle on a squad they are happy with.
If someone is winning an auction and another player comes in and they bid less than the proxy bid the manager who is winning that auction has specified, the current price of the auction will go up to the value of the new bid.
If the bid is higher than the specified proxy bid then the auction price will be set to the minimum bid increment higher than the proxy bid the manager that has been outbid specified. If a manager is outbid on an auction they will have 24 hours to respond. That means the auction end time may be extended. An auction will only get extended if a manager is outbid. If the auction price changes, but it is still below (or equal to) the current managers proxy bid then the auction will not extend.
Soon after the auction end time the auction will end. The player won will be moved into the winning managers squad. A player is only eligible for selection in a team if the auction ends before the selection deadline for a week.
The funds for purchasing the player are deducted at the time of the bid. The full proxy bid amount is removed from available funds. If you are outbid on a player then the funds are returned. If you win the auction for that player then the final price of the player funds are kept, but any difference between the proxy bid and the price paid is returned.
In this example the league will have a minimum bid increment of £500,000, bid precision of £500,000, initial auction deadline of Thursday 12:00, minimum auction duration of 3 days and auction rollover duration of 24 hours.
Creating the auction
Action: Manager A selects a player and places an initial bid of £500,000 and a proxy bid of £4,000,000 on Monday 9:00.
Result: The auction is created with the current price of £500,000. The auction is due to end on Thursday 12:00. Manager A is winning this auction.
Not reaching the proxy bid
Action: Manager B places a bid on the same player with an initial bid of £1,000,000 and a proxy bid of £2,000,000 on Monday 14:00.
Result: As the proxy bid that Manager A placed has not been reached, Manager A continues to win this auction. The current price is £2,000,000. The deadline is unchanged.
Current winner changing hands
Action: Manager C places a bid on the same player with an initial bid of £2,500,000 and a proxy bid of £6,000,000 on Tuesday 11:00.
Result: As the proxy bid is higher than that specified by Manager A, the new price is £4,500,000 and Manager C is currently winning the auction. The deadline is unchanged.
Auction extended
Action: Manager D places a bid on the same player with an initial bid of £5,000,000 and a proxy bid of £8,000,000 on Wednesday 20:00.
Result: As the proxy bid is higher than that specified by Manager C, the new price is £6,500,000 and Manager D is currently winning the auction. As it is within 24 hours of the deadline, the auction is extended to 24 hours after this bid. The new deadline is Thursday 20:00.
Auction not extended
Action: Manager E places a bid on the same player with an initial bid of £7,000,000 and a proxy bid of £7,500,000 on Thursday 17:00.
Result: As the proxy bid is not higher than that specified by Manager D, Manager D continues to be winning the auction. Even though the bid is placed within 24 hours of the deadline, the auction has not changed hands so the auction is not extended.
Auctions can be viewed by selecting the 'Auctions' menu on the left and then selecting 'All' or a position. If you select a position you will also get to see all the current free agents in that position in the page.
That page will show you all the current open auctions (if your league has an auction type of open, see later otherwise) and all those that are currently transfer listed.
If you have hidden auctions turned on in your league, then it will tell you how many auctions are active for that position. It will not show you auctions which are still hidden.
The transfer list contains players currently owned by a manager in your league who wishes to sell them. They will have a minimum price. Players on the transfer list are always available to be bid on. Once any manager bids on them, they are removed from the transfer list and an auction is created for them. They then appear in the main auctions list.
You may delete an auction at any time. If you delete and auction you will lose some of your funds. You will lose the current price of the auction from your funds.
The exception to this is: if a player is removed from the game (because they were transfered out of the premier league or retired) then you can delete an auction for them getting all your money back.
The page and text on the button will say that you will get your money back. Please ensure that it does say that before deleting an auction. There may be some delay between the transfer or retirement announcement and that player being removed from the game.