I agree with you in principle about the blooding of more youth and earlier, but the harsh reality is that the drop off from the first 16 to anything else is precipitous. I'm still unsure how many unproven players can be accommodated in the starting eleven before we are weakened: 1 maybe 2. By weakened here, I mean that other players stop doing their job effectively because they are also minding others through the game. Might be wrong, but the only meaningful game where we attempted to blood three unproven players (Gomez/Phillips/Palmer) was Southampton in the League Cup, though we admittedly played them in an irregular combination of other players to boot. As we all know, it did not end well.
I guess much will depend on who leaves and who comes in, but if young players really want to break through next year, then the early part of the season will be their best opportunity to stake a claim.