That sort clutter annoys me, which is why I've avoided it up until now by recruiting the exact number of people I need for each route (around 15). This time, I'm focusing on as many cross-House supports as possible, even at the expense of having a good army. I'm comfortable enough with the difficulty by now, which I can now definitively say is easier than any Fire Emblem game I've played thus far. This is mostly thanks to Dragon Pulse, but it also feels like the game in general is simply easier. So, my armies look less like armies and more like a high school cafeteria. At any rate, having characters sat around on the bench does me no good, since they aren't gaining those sweet sweet in-battle Support points.
The knights and teachers have a sort of double problem - not only do they have a bunch of supports across all three Houses, but they have supports with each other as well - most of which I've seen, since I've always grabbed a few knights and teachers to fill out my ranks. It's only the ones I haven't recruited together (like Shamir and Catherine) that I'm missing out on.
I'll probably grab Shamir and Catherine just so I can see the Support you're talking about, and leave Manuela and Hanneman since I've seen most of their stuff. Alois will get left out as well, since I'd be most interested in seeing any Supports he might have with Gilbert and I can't recruit Gilbert on this route.