I'm much the same, the downsides to being part time i suppose, think I can only offer my Key Players longer contracts than to the end of the current year.
First youth intake at first look looked amazing, but it turned out to be more of a, 'yours teams pish so these average youngsters should be quality' as they are all estimated to be good league 1 players other than Cameron, Hoban and Calder who have all gone on to become key players by the start of the 3rd season. The lack of decent central midfielders coming through was a worry with having only 2 in the first team who actually had any ability.
Anyway, plunged most of them into the deep end which probably wasn't a good idea for that season but it has helped improve them for the future. Managed to get into 9th though by October i thought we would actually go somewhere after a decent winning streak but it was just a false dawn. Papped out all 3 cups in the first round but wasn't too fussed about them anyway.
Managed to get all my players signed up for another year to try and consolidate and push up the table next season, whilst blooding a lot of the youth players for when some of the older players begin to retire.