That's the beauty of the League Cup :-)
You can develop the Youth into Class, but I do understand what you mean. I would have struggled had I not had an already class/experienced defence, and i'm still finding it hard to replace them with youngsters.

nice =)
i try and do what you do, but i find you need to get a balance of class and youth to win games on a regular basis.

Nice idea I guess.

When im playing Manager Mode, I tend to not sign any big name players. I firstly upgrade my Goalkeeper, Defence, Midfield and Striker staff to full, and then I buy some young lads, maybe age 22 maximum and with an overall of 70+ (or I try to improve the young players I already have).

I always play 1 or 2 of them in my first team, and I keep a few of them for cup matches/subs only. A first team player gains around +5-10 overall in there first season or two, and just from playing cup matches they gain around +3 overall in a season (depending how far you get obviously).

When you work hard to make a average player into a world class player, it's well worth the time, and it really makes the game interesting for me personaly, you should give it a try :-)

Im in my third season with Arsenal now, all my first team players have an overall of 80+, my team is;
Fabianski (Overall: 87)
Clichy (Overall: 90)
Toure (Overall: 96)
Gallas (Overall: 95)
Sagna (Overall: 90)
Walcott (Overall: 91)
Fabregas (Overall: 98)
Ramsey (Overall: 87)
Nasri (Overall: 93)
Vela (Overall 89)
Van Persie (Overall: 91)