You forgot "The end"?! Or is the beautiful-black-wednesday still hunting you ?

Nah, but that was to pitty and "bad luck". In a situation like that,I would probably thrown my entire bench in the league game and saved the 1th line-up for the CUP. Now, as you are a little bit of short of DR-DC-DL, you could have playing with them and just "heal" them after instead of the entire squad.

3 - 1 isn't bad, but it isn't good either. You need to win by 2-0 at home or at least get +2 (or 3-1 and take it to xtra time). I suggest you go all in in the return with 2+2 strikers/wingers (4-2N-2W2) and attack, attack!