To put this heart rate study into perspective, when I was cycle time-trialing I used a heart-rate monitor. The idea was to check that your effort was on the cusp - just beneath the anaerobic threshold so that you were working flat out - without going into the red and blowing up. This controlled effort could last around an hour if you were cycling 25 miles. The monitor never lied no matter how you felt. In my fifties, my limit was in the low 190s bpm.

I think the danger for Allardyce and other managers (and even fans) is that we are talking about sudden explosions of increased heart rates when a goal is scored - or there's a bad foul or a debatable decision by the ref.