Hello all,

I am playing the pro league for the first time, and have no idea what to expect from the auction. Generally speaking, how much do players go for compared to their classic pricing? How many players should I look to be bidding on in the first round?

Hi KrisP, and welcome to the forum.

Difficult to answer query as auctions can take many forms, eg:
online/email or in person at pub/office;
sealed bid or genuine auction per player;
separate auction day/time for each player category (gk, def, mid, strk) or all over in one session;
etc.

With more info on format and any house rule it'd be easier to get/provide a response.

Good luck.

Haha, I didn't even know there were so many options! It's going to be online and I believe by sealed bid. I'm unsure whether it will be done by position or all at once though.

It depends on how many managers are in the league.
Going on experience of 8-10 managers I would advise to bid all you allowance in each round, but advise against averaging out you money across all your bids.
In the first round it is worth chancing your arm on a few with very low bids and even £0.00M. It is surprising the number of top players that don't attract any bids at all. The reason being that at a top 5 club, for example at Man Utd, you have players like Vidic, Evra , Ferdinand, Rooney, Nani, Valencia, Hernandez and Young......being as anyone can only bid on 2 from any club in each round I would say at least 2 of those will get no bids and another 2 will get just one bid each.
If you really want a top player like Van Persie you may have to bid £20M or more. Goalkeepers are a problem, it might be worth picking up a mid-table team keeper in the first round to make sure you don't end up with only a pick of the dross in the later rounds.
In later rounds check out who can actually bid for certain players as some managers may have used up the 2 player per club allowance or may have to use their bids on getting players for certain positions to make up a valid squad.
Good luck, sealed bids are great fun and full of mind games!

Excellent bit of info there, thanks. Can't believe RvP will be around 20m!

As I said, I am used to scoring systems with bonuses for performance etc. In ofl goals and assists count for far more. Still, surely thus cannot make splashing 20m on a top striker a wise move?

Are there certain positions where spending decent money is a waste?

There are variations in rules available depending on your package. In the league I'm in we carry squads and cash balances over from season to season so we don't have a fresh auction with all players up for grabs.
The tips I have given come from when I played a basic pro-league that was call auction league. This no longer exists under that name, but the basic rules are the same as far as I can make out.
You have an initial budget for the "start of season" auction and you keep having sealed bids rounds until everyone has filled their squads and then the league is set. Any money left over from the auction is lost and everyone has a new budget for mid-season transfer sealed bids, therefore saving money in the initial auction is pointless.
The size of budgets is set by the chairman and I'm quoting on a budget of £75M if memory serves me right.
As far as the worth of a player is concerned it depends how much it is worth to you. If you really want a player you have to outbid everyone else. You can't get bogged down with comparing values with the classic game.
I soon learnt the big difference is that once a player has been snapped up that is that, if you lose out on you preferred player your next best choices may have already gone too. I've seen managers even out their bids on the first round and maybe only pick up only 3/4 players and then struggle .
All positions are valid for paying out for. If you lose your bids in the defence especially you could find yourself scraping around for half decent players in later rounds. If you end up with a defence full of wolves/norwich/wba players you will have to play them and end up not only missing out on clean sheets but losing points for many weeks.