Gray gets his orders. You can make offers to any number of players. You can change the purchase sum, the length of contract, and their weekly wage. You can loan players. There aren't any scouts, but you can define search criteria, like age, position, price etc., and you also have a hotlist.
Response times vary, but are generally around one week.
I hired a third division player for 1 million pounds a month, and nobody said a thing. Of course, I got sacked two months later when my bank balance went down the drain. I bought an expensive player, and to draw him in, I gave him a rather high salary. My board then warned me that they expect good performance from this guy, because he cost so much, or else I will get the sack. This makes for much more interesting buying and selling decisions than in any other game of this type.