One of my hobbies is boardgames. Not the well-known boardgames that almost everyone hates, like trivial pursuit and monopoly, but new designer games (which, if you're interested, I recommend you to read about on the board game geek website). The clever kind of boardgames that, I should imagine, Arsene Wenger may invent once he retires from the daily grind of searching for more midfielders to sign and designing clever new formations to accommodate them. Word is, next season's fantasy premier league will have an extra option of a Wenger Card (playable when you activate your January Wild Card) which will allow you to play 3-7-0 for the rest of the season. Just remember: you first read about it here, on FFFix.

Arsenal midfielders. And, er, boardgames. Where was I going with this one? Oh yeah, so a fun board game has some luck in it (unlike chess) but it also gives you choices about what to do (unlike snakes & ladders). It mixes up the luck and decision-making so you usually start with a plan of what to do - but then, as the game unfolds, you'll often face some kind of dilemma caused by random changes. Sometimes you should play it cool and stick to your gameplan, but sometimes it's better to come up with a completely new plan to guard against new threats and snap up new opportunities that have emerged.

Fantasy football has a lot of this fun boardgame stuff going on. Almost every game-week there's some dilemma: was that player just off his game in his last match, or has he lost form longer-term? Stick with an out-of-form player for too long and you'll miss out on points from other players who you could've signed instead. But getting rid of players every time they have an off-day is a mug's game, it costs you too many points in hits. BTW many people who play fantasy football take far too many hits over a season. One of the websites (fpl discovery, I think) looked at last year's top 10k finishers and found that they'd generally taken around 10 hits over the whole of that season. Very few of those top 10k teams had taken no hits at all, but fewer still had taken more than 20.

For most of the fantasy football season it's worth having a strong bench, and this year I've experimented with having a super-strong one. Back in August I made it clear to all the Cry Me A Riviere lads that I want 100 percent from them every week, whether they're in my first XI or not. The benched players duly got off to a flying start thanks to Siggy's 13 points against Man U in GW1, and in GW20 Harry Kane notched a superb 18 points (well you wouldn't pick a Spurs player against Chelsea, would you?) to put the CMAR Subs top of the FPL reserves table.

More seriously, I reckon CMAR's super-strong bench is the main reason why ('scuse me for milking this just a teeny bit, folks) all those green and grey arrows have been piling up for my first XI as well. That train-wreck of injuries and suspensions back in GW15 and the "blank" GW27 were two occasions this season when it was clearly useful to be playing with a full deck - and I reckon it's handy at many other times as well, since it makes it easier to hold onto star players if they get suspended or injured. It can often be worth keeping a good player in your squad if he's only out for a few GWs, because it saves you transferring him out of your team and then back in when he's available again. Instead you can use those FTs to bring in other up-and-coming players to keep your whole squad sound. And of course players who are rising in value do so regardless of whether you play them, so investing in a strong bench early doors is also a way of playing the market.

But, as in many designer boardgames, in fantasy football you do best if you change the way you play as you get towards the end. And sad to say, dear reader, we're already moving into that final phase of this season. During the endgame of fantasy football there's not so much to be gained by keeping your squad balanced: holding a big hand or a pile of cash in GW39 won't score you any extra points.

Just for my peace of mind I'd still hope to have at least one starting outfield player on my bench in GW38, but over the final few GWs I'm not expecting to use up any FTs (let alone take hits) to replace my weakest players. Not even if they're out for the season. The game-plan is simply to hoover up as many points as possible, using FTs for fine-tuning the front eight players to each set of fixtures. As well as for the usual business of weeding out any aces who aren't on top of their game. So, back to square one Giroud and ADM. Do not pass Go.

In other team news, last month GKW parted company with the pikey bit of stalwart Terrivanovic (see Tips on How To Be Vile And Disgusting) ahead of GW27. He's now making do with Zoumanovic, Bellerin and half the Southampton defence. Plus the same front 8 as pretty much everyone else who's still playing.

This article was brought to you by GKW.