Jonathan Wilson: VAR has fundamentally changed how football is played - World Soccer

"An action taken in one area to rectify one issue will almost certainly have a knock-on effect elsewhere, which is why any change to the laws of the game should be undertaken with great caution. Take, for example, the introduction of three points for a win, implemented in the English leagues from 1981-82. The theory, set out by Jimmy Hill, was that it would make football more attacking. In fact, it led to teams with a lead fighting harder to retain it: what went up was not the number of goals but the number of fouls and bookings."

"VAR has changed offside. From 1992, to be level with the penultimate defensive player was to be onside. In practice, of course, that was almost impossible for a linesman to judge, and the tendency was for forwards to get the benefit of the doubt. So a forward could be three or four inches ahead of the relevant defender and still reasonably expect to be considered onside. This was understood and accepted; defenders knew that to play a forward offside and be relatively confident the linesman would give it, the core of their body had to be obviously in advance of the forward's core. That has gone now: forwards can be played offside by a pixel."

"Perhaps the most striking feature of last summer's transfer window was how many fairly classical centre-forwards changed hands for vast sums of money. With Alexander Isak, Benjamin Sesko, Viktor Gyokeres, Hugo Ekitike and Nick Woltemade all making big moves, and Erling Haaland already established, it felt like a reversion to the football of the 1980s. VAR is not the only reason for the return of the target man, but it is at least in part responsible."

Football law changes produce cascading effects throughout the sport. The three-points-for-a-win system introduced in 1981-82 intended to increase attacking play but instead led to more defensive fouls and bookings. VAR has similarly transformed the game beyond accuracy debates and timing delays. Most significantly, VAR's implementation of offside rules changed from the practical tolerance of linesmen to pixel-perfect precision. Previously, forwards received the benefit of doubt when level with defenders, allowing a three or four-inch advantage. This compromise has been eliminated, requiring forwards to be perfectly level. This stricter enforcement has contributed to the recent resurgence of classical centre-forwards and target man tactics, as seen in the summer transfer window with high-value moves for players like Isak, Sesko, and Gyokeres.

Read at World Soccer