Will I ruin these youngsters ?

Hi all. Having cut my teeth on FM08 for 2 years I have dipped a toe on FM10 for a few days, playing on my stepson's computer (my own new lappie is on order and due at the end of next week, hence no sceenshots - and no FM in the interim, sadly !).

I started as Nottm Forest in an all-regen universe (my preferred way to play, seems more interesting having to dig up players for your team, no knowledge of the quality of the opposition's etc). The prediction was 'obscure mid-table finish' and the Ass Man thought we had the squad to achieve this.

My best player in the original team was 17 y/o Johnny Hubbard, an Eng U19 and MC (but not tagged as a Wonderkid). We had some half-decent strikers and no wingers and so I opted for a flat 4-3-3. Transfer budget was 700,000 GBP and off I went to market. I tried to restrict myself to transfer-listed and free agents and managed to flesh out a decent CB and DMC, which I felt I desperately needed. I trawled the free agents and dug up some unbelievable gems, for a change ( IncidentallyI found it such a step up from FM08 where, once you get beyong CCL1 its pointless looking for free agents, the quality was so crap) . 3 16 y/os fell into my lap- a Belgian creative MC who was better than playmaker my Ass Man had pegged in the original squad, a Serb striker with 15 finishing and ok stats elsewhere and a Slovak striker with 14 finishing and reasonable technical skills (my deep-lying forward, I thought). All signed up for the grand sum of $0 (Celtic let the Serb go for nothing, and he has 'Good premiership' potential.... is this a known bug with all-regen universes at start-up, does anyone know ?)

So 10 games in all 4 have played at least 9 of the games (incidentally all these 4 youngsters have stamina > 12, and 20 in the case of the Serb). We have lost only 1 game and are top of the heap and clear of the pack by 10 points. The fans want to marry me and the Chairman whips my bum for me. The youngsters are 'happy with their training schedules', always start games with Condition > 93% and end up as exhausted as everyone else on the team at match end, no more.

Then I check young Johnny H's stats and every single one of his mental and technical stats have dropped !!! (within 3 months of the season starting). The Slovak is now 'close to his full potential' despite the fact that his stats have not inc at all. The other two haven't changed, but have played 1-2 games less due to poorer performances.

So my question is, have I stuffed up the other two due to being overplayed ? If so, I guess I should back right off on games for all four of them. Unfortunately this completely screws me up as they are 4 of the top 6 players in my squad (which doesn't say much about my squad I guess). Do you think there's any possibility its just some other kind of random thing so are the warning bells ringing ?

Thanks for your advice / comments, this being a first post and all.......

welcome to the forums

yes you are screwing them up, it's obvious that some young teenager can't cope with playing game after game, common logic

I'd say just don't play youngsters below 95%, and you should be fine.

It could just be that they're very talented for their age, but not going to get any better.