The Queen Mother Champion Chase is one of the feature races of the week and the 2025 renewal is looking like a particularly hot race at the Cheltenham Festival.

Captain Guinness is the defending champion, winning the 2024 race after favourite El Fabiolo was pulled up early on in the race. However, this looks wide open to my eye...

Jonbon has some excellent form in the book and he showed significant improvement this season before the Nicky Henderson yard was struck down by a virus ahead of the Festival.

It was rotten timing for the Seven Barrows stable but Jonbon is one who could return and challenge for Grade 1 honours at the 2025 Cheltenham Festival.

In addition, Arkle winner Gaelic Warrior proved that he can go and win a Grade 1 going left-handed and the tighter Old Course didn't bother him too much as he bolted up to put his rivals to the sword.

Champion Chase 2025 Odds:

From a betting perspective, the 2025 Cheltenham Festival is some way off right now but the Queen Mother Champion Chase looks like one of the races of the week.

El Fabiolo has a point to prove and he'll be on a revenge mission while Jonbon, Gaelic Warrior and new champ Captain Guinness will fancy their chances of Grade 1 glory.

You can find Cheltenham betting odds on the Champion Chase and other major races at the 2025 Cheltenham Festival on the 888sport website.

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*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to Alamy*

The Mares Hurdle looks a thriller of a renewal once again in 2025 and we have a warm favourite in defending champion Lossiemouth for the Willie Mullins team.

She's done little wrong since moving to the Closutton yard, winning the Triumph Hurdle last season before ending her juvenile campaign with another Grade 1 success at Punchestown.

This year, she's taken her form to new heights - winning the Grade 2 Unibet Hurdle against the geldings before bolting up to win the Grade 1 Mares Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival.

Is she a worthy favourite? On all known form, she's certainly the one to beat...

Mares Hurdle 2025 Odds:

Declarations will be made for the 2025 Mares Hurdle on the Sunday before the Festival. The market is currently expecting Willie Mullins to win the race, and understandably so - he has won the Mares Hurdle a record 10 times at Cheltenham.

Punters will be keeping a close eye on the Cheltenham betting odds ahead of the 2025 renewal and Lossiemouth is sure to be a warm order for favourite backers.

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*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to Alamy*

Excuse the pun but height is a big advantage for any player, especially those who reside between the sticks. It’s not a coincidence that a good proportion of the skyscraping footballers mentioned below are goalkeepers.

Elsewhere, a towering centre-back will always back himself to win aerial duels while they may have gone out of fashion in recent years but betting on football online is always a little easier when a team is blessed with a big man up front. 

That’s assuming of course that he also has ‘good feet’. You know, ‘for a big lad’. Here are the tallest players in Premier League history, all of which stand at 6’6 or taller. Some we had to look up. All we look up to. 

Asmir Begovic – 199 cm

The Bosnian stopper commanded his box with authority and had the reactions to pull off some spectacular saves, often putting in match-defining performances for Stoke.

Spending several years as number one with the Potters, Begovic eventually opted to become second choice at Chelsea.

He eventually got bored of the bench, though, and moved on to make over 100 appearances for Bournemouth.

Loans to Qarabag and Milan were underwhelming before Begovic joined Everton on a one-year deal in the 2021 summer window.

He is presently number one at QPR as his career winds down. 

Sasa Kalajdzic – 200 cm 

Austrian international Sasa Kalajdzic signed for Wolves in the summer of 2022, but his top-flight adventures got off to the worst possible start, tearing an ACL just 45 minutes in. 

Requiring surgery, the injury set him back a full year.

All of which left a striker often compared to Peter Crouch, due to his lofty stature and slender build, somewhat of a forgotten figure and certainly he didn’t feature in any football prediction ahead of the 2023/24 season. 

Still, from August to January, the 26-year-old was making a name for himself as an impact sub at Molineux, that was until he was loaned back to the Bundesliga.

In February, he scored his first goal for Eintracht Frankfurt but just three days later he cruelly succumbed to another ACL tear. 

Thibaut Courtois – 200 cm

One of the best goalkeepers of his generation, Thibaut Courtois stands at 200 cm and cuts an imposing figure for opponents.

Courtois uses his height well in one-on-one situations, making himself big and giving attackers little margin for error. At set pieces, he is decisive and commands the area with calm claims and punches.

Courtois won the Premier League Golden Glove in 2016-17, but his spell at Chelsea may ultimately be a footnote once he hangs up the gloves.

That’s because, despite being a Premier League champion, the Belgian has enjoyed even greater success in La Liga, including a string of heroic performances in Real Madrid’s run to the 2021-22 Champions League.

His career is likely to age well, placing him alongside Manuel Neuer, Gianluigi Buffon, Petr Cech and a small group of others as the greatest goalkeepers of the 21st century.

Dan Burn – 201 cm

A match-going Newcastle obsessive as a young boy, Dan Burn started his career at Darlington before joining Fulham in 2011. There he made his Premier League debut prior to the West London club enduring relegation. 

A spell with Wigan followed, which earned a big move to Brighton and a return to the top-flight.

At 201 cm tall, Burn played in central defence for much of his career, but a reinvention on the South Coast had him deployed as a left-back, a role that has continued since joining his boyhood club Newcastle in 2022. 

Unsurprisingly, the defender is a major threat in both boxes at set-pieces though a recent trend has seen opposing teams target his weaknesses, namely an inability to turn quickly due to his imposing frame. 

Lucas Bergstrom – 201cm

Courtois left Stamford Bridge for even better things and to a lesser extent the same will surely apply to Bergstrom, the young Finn showing a lot of promise on loan at Peterborough but with his path blocked twice-over to Chelsea’s first team.

With Robert Sanchez and Djordje Petrovic ahead of him in the pecking order in West London, a move elsewhere looks increasingly likely at some juncture, and after keeping clean sheets galore at Posh there will be no shortage of takers for the 21-year-old. 

Paul Onuachu – 201 cm

Signed by Southampton in January 2023, Paul Onuachu is one of the tallest players in Premier League history.

Onuachu debuted for the Saints soon after his move from Gent, where the forward had been prolific across two seasons.

Alas, most of his appearances came from the bench and with Southampton ultimately justifying their short-priced odds in the Premier League betting to drop last season, the player has subsequently headed to Turkey on loan.  

Stefan Postma – 201 cm

Making 11 Premier League appearances for Aston Villa, Dutch goalkeeper Stefan Postma filled the goal with his 6’7 frame.

While he never become first choice with the Villains, Postma opted to remain in the Midlands and spent a short period of time with Wolves.

He eventually returned to the Netherlands, presumably paying extra for legroom on the flight over.

Lars Leese – 201 cm

Distinctive name, distinctive physique, Leese was for a number of years the tallest ever player to ply his trade in the Premier League, the Barnsley goalkeeper making 16 appearances in the late-1990s.

Returning to his native Germany around the Millenium, he is presently the coach of DSK Koln.

Ian Feuer – 201 cm

Better remembered for his years in the lower leagues with Luton, Ian Feuer had to wait until his second spell with West Ham to make his Premier League debut.

The Las Vegas born goalkeeper was signed as a backup by the Hammers and made three appearances during the 2000/01 campaign.

He retired in 2002 and has since become an assistant with the LA Galaxy and USC Trojans.

Stefan Maierhofer – 202 cm

It was a short and largely uneventful spell in the Premier League for Stefan Maierhofer. 

Having started out at Bayern, he made a real impact in Austria with Rapid Wien, but a £1.8m switch to Wolves in 2009 resulted in just ten outings and a singular goal. 

Never really settling at a club, Maierhofer continued to move around and, standing at 6’8, perhaps it could be said that his height counted against him. Too often he was viewed as a last resort, thrown off the bench when a goal down. 

Nikola Zigic – 202 cm

At comfortably over two metres tall, Nikola Zigic was the archetypal powerhouse.

He arrived in the Premier League following an underwhelming stint with Valencia, but he had plenty of goal scoring pedigree. The Serbian had been prolific with Red Star Belgrade in the mid-noughties.

Signing for Birmingham in 2010, Zigic was unable to prevent his side’s slide into the second tier, but he also enjoyed a pivotal role in the club’s greatest ever day as they shocked Arsenal in the League Cup final.

Peter Crouch – 202 cm

The most iconic of the players in this article, Peter Crouch made just shy of 470 Premier League appearances across a lengthy career. He’s also the all-time leader in headed goals.

With 108 top flight goals and over 40 England caps, Crouch was more than an old school target man.

The boy could play and several worldies notched throughout his club career is testament to that.

Now a very successful podcaster, presenter and occasional pundit, ‘Crouchinho’ is one of the most universally loved players in the history of the Premier League.

Lacina Traore – 203 cm

Nicknamed the ‘Big Tree’, Traore accrued just three minutes of Premier League football for Everton but that’s sufficient to have him earn joint-top spot on this list. 

The Ivory Coast forward first came to prominence at CFR Cruj but a later move to Monaco turned sour, resulting in a multitude of loans. 

Unplayable on his day due to his giant stature, sadly those days were few and far between. 

Costel Pantilimon – 203 cm

There were a great many reasons why Manchester City were perennial favourites in the Premier League odds back in the day, just like they are now. 

Possessing a star-studded squad was one. That they could occasionally rest Joe Hart and fill up their goal with an enormous Romanian was another. 

After serving as an able back-up to Hart, the 6ft 8 stopper moved to Sunderland, then Watford, before dropping down into the Championship. 

He has since played in Cyprus and Turkey, racking up 27 caps for his country along the way.

Current Tallest Players In Premier League

Chelsea’s Bergstrom has the honour of being the tallest player in the Premier League right now, though there is only a longer haircut between the Finn and Dan Burn.

Elsewhere there are a plethora of keepers towering over their peers, from Fraser Forster to Burnley’s Arijanet Muric.   

Naturally, Burn is the tallest defender in the Premier League, while Manchester United’s Scott McTominay shades it in midfield, just peeking over Everton’s Amadou Onana and West Ham’s Tomas Soucek. 

Up front, meanwhile, Erling Haaland stands head and shoulders above the rest, which is apt given his extraordinary goal-scoring record.

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*Credit for the main photo belongs to Alamy*

• Ian Wright is a former professional footballer

• Wright is the second highest goalscorer in Arsenal’s history and is a popular pundit

• A celebrity beyond football, Wright is a regular on British television screens

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Former footballers who turn their hand to punditry are supposed to be divisive, not universally loved. Ian Edward Wright MBE is the exception to that rule.

Making a seamless transition from scoring a ton of goals for Arsenal to excelling amidst the landscape of celebrity, ‘Wrighty’ has a rare ability to appeal to many different demographics. This makes him a highly desirable figure for advertisers and television executives alike.  

What this also means is that despite playing most of his football before the avalanche of money came into the game, Ian Wright is an extremely wealthy individual.  

Football Career

Born in Woolwich, South-East London on November 3rd, 1963, Wright was famously a slow starter to professional football, playing non-league until the age of 21.

There was even a three-week stint in Chelmsford Prison for repeated failures to pay driving-related fines as his life increasingly looked like it was heading down the wrong path.

It was football that saved him, or more accurately a determination to make something of himself, doing what he was best at, and with a first child imminent there was little time to lose.

A semi-pro deal with Greenwich Borough was secured, earning him £30 per week and then just a few weeks later a successful trial with Crystal Palace led to a contract being signed worth five times that amount. 

More importantly, the explosive striker was on his way.

It’s not often our football tips for today predicts success for the Eagles and the same was true in the mid-Eighties. Yet Palace’s perennial underdog status chimed with Wright’s desperation to prove himself, against all odds.

They were made for each other and in due course the club was promoted to the top-flight, fired to such heights by Wright’s goals.

There were 117 all told, from 253 starts over six seasons. It was enough to have him forever considered a club legend. Indeed, in 2005 he was voted their ‘Player of the Century’.     

A move to Arsenal followed in 1991, signed for a club record fee of £2.5m, and to say he got off to a flying start would be an understatement. He scored on his debut, got a hat-trick in his first league appearance, and finished his first season with a hefty tally of 31 goals.

The former Sunday League striker had immediately installed himself as Arsenal’s main man. 

The goals kept on coming too, only this time it was accompanied by team success as Arsenal won a domestic cup double in 1993. 

And then, in the twilight of his career, Arsene Wenger arrived, bringing about a renaissance in the forward who went on to enjoy a couple more vintage seasons. September 1997 saw Wright become Arsenal’s all-time leading scorer, a feat which was later surpassed by Thierry Henry.

In his final campaign in North Londo the Gunners won a league title and what a phenomenal side that was. They were nailed on in the Premier League betting from August on. 

Brief spells at West Ham, Nottingham Forest (on loan), Celtic and Burnley followed before Wright drew the curtains on a career that began on muddy communal fields and ended with him hailed a legend at two London clubs. 

Thirty-three England caps and 333 career goals is proof enough of his greatness.

How Much Is Ian Wright Worth?

According to numerous sources Ian Wright has a net worth in excess of £20 million, a figure largely accrued from his second career, appearing on our screens in various guises. 

That is not to say that his playing career merely earned him pocket money. In fact, we’re on very safe ground in assuming that his first few million in the bank derived from contract extensions and bonuses, that all came on top of a generous weekly wage, especially at Arsenal. 

There were also endorsements that flooded in once he became a household name and England star, not least a lucrative boot deal with Nike.

Post-retirement, however, saw his earning power rocket.

For his punditry work with the BBC, Wright was paid – until 2020 when he took a pay cut – between £205,000 and £209,999 a year.

He has hosted his own chat show called Friday Night’s All Wright that would have garnered him a contract in the high six figures. He has additionally hosted a game show (‘I’d Do Anything’) and presented a prime-time Saturday evening show entitled The National Lottery Wright Ticket.

Fronting such programmes is where the money is. It will have garnered him a fortune. Moreover, his broad popularity has made him a go-to star for huge companies.

In recent years, among many more, he has appeared in TV advertisements for Nescafe, Chicken Tonight, the phone network One-to-One, Nike and M&S. 

Putting his name and reputation to each will have brought in a substantial sum. 

Ian Wright Wife

Ian Wright has been married on two occasions. He is currently married to Nancy Hallam and has been since 2011. Wright’s first wedding was in 1993 in Mauritius, but it ended in 2004.

The former Arsenal striker later admitted in his autobiography that he was unfaithful in his first marriage.

He wrote, "I got caught up in all of that and cheated on my first wife, Debbie, which destroyed my marriage. That was a really horrible period. If there’s ever been a time in my life I wish I could change, that would be it."

Ian Wright Children

Ian Wright has eight children. The first of which, Shaun, went on to become a winger for Manchester City, Chelsea and England.

Shaun was adopted by Ian in 1984 while he was in a relationship with Sharon Phillips – the couple had another child, Bradley who also became a professional footballer. He had another son, Brett, in 1987, before two children with his first wife Debbie.

Nancy Hallam and Wright have two children. The first was Lola, born in 2009, and Roxanne is Wright’s eighth child, born in 2012.

How Old Is Ian Wright?

Ian Wright is 60 years old and to give some historical context to that age, he was born 19 days before President John F Kennedy was assassinated.

Since retiring from football in 2000, Wright briefly dabbled in coaching with Milton Keynes Dons and purchasing a stake in Ashton United.

He has featured on BBC’s Top Gear and presented several shows, including a guest stint on Top of the Pops. He has also mastered the art of radio, hosting his own show on Talksport and regularly appearing on Five Live. 

Ian Wright I’m A Celebrity

Ian Wright was a contestant on the 2019 edition of I’m A Celebrity. He was the fifth celebrity to be voted off after being in the bottom two with Caitlyn Jenner.

During his time in the jungle, Wright was criticised for his treatment of Andrew Maxwell.

Ian Wright Teacher

Working on an ITV4 programme being filmed at Highbury several years ago, Ian Wright was reunited with his primary school teacher, Sydney Pidgen.

Pidgen played a major role in getting Wright into football, and the former Arsenal striker had clearly assumed he had passed away.

Having not seen each other for almost a quarter of a century, Wright is surprised on camera by the reunion with Mr Pidgen – he emotionally says, "You're alive!" and in the following interview describes Pidgen as "kind of like his special guy".

Wright dedicated his autobiography to Mr Pidgen and has since spoken emotionally about their relationship on Desert Island Discs.

Wright said, “Being able to unveil his plaque at Turnham junior school was the greatest thing I've ever done in my life. He was the greatest man in the world.”

Ian Wright Pundit

Wright’s jovial personality can sometimes overshadow the depth and quality of his analysis which is often superb. 

Known and appreciated for his fairness, he is also not afraid to say it how he sees it, such as previously being a strong critic of VAR and more recently coming to the defence of an Arsenal side facing flak for supposedly over-celebrating their victories.

If the Gunners defy the football betting and win their first league title for two decades we can expect Wright to be front and centre among the revellers at the Emirates. 

Moreover, revealing himself to be a man of integrity, Wright was widely praised early last year when he was the first pundit to announce he would not appear on Match of the Day in light of Gary Lineker’s temporary removal from presenting duties.

Lineker had become a national talking point after tweeting about the government’s immigration policy. 

Standing shoulder to shoulder with his colleague, Wright tweeted, “Everybody knows what Match of the Day means to me, but I’ve told the BBC I won’t be doing it tomorrow. Solidarity.”

Thousands spoke out in support of the ex-Arsenal striker with a comment made by Gary Neville that was particularly pertinent. “I had no doubt Ian Wright would do that.”

Check All Sports Betting Odds Here!

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*Credit for the main photo belongs to Alamy*

The Champions League last-16 stage is over and we can enter into 8 key, crucial points or details of this match week for 888 Sport.

Never ending Pepe

He’s 41 year old - the same age as Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta - and is still showing his class as a centre back leader in European football, dominating opponents who are 20 years younger. Legend.

Jadon Sancho, present and future

He strongly wanted to return to Borussia Dortmund and he’s scored a crucial goal for the team to advance to quarter finals. Quality, leadership… and sources guarantee he’d love to stay in Dortmund also next year.

Pau Cubarsí, another planet

Not only Lamine, Barça have one more gem and it’s the Spanish centre back. Insane performance against Napoli, not just his blocks but quality passes too. Special talent, as Xavi said. He’s Barcelona’s future.

David Raya, hero and future

He’s been the man of the night for Arsenal on penalties but also, his future will be again under Arteta. Arsenal will pay £27m buy option to get him on a permanent deal from Brentford; zero doubts and well deserved.

Memphis Depay, puro corazón

The lion reacts with crucial goal for Atlético as Griezmann has been excellent again but… Depay, special in special moment. This could also change his future at Atléti in terms of contract. Honorable mention also for Oblak, what a penalty saver!

João Cancelo, priority Barcelona

Key goal against Napoli but also strong desire to stay at Barça beyond this season. He’d love to continue at the club and be part of the project, talks with Man City will be in the summer but meanwhile… he’s doing again really well.

Lautaro Martínez, crucial detail

He’s a top striker and also provided two super assists at the Metropolitano; but he should improve on penalties as his track record with Inter is poor and not at his level, as top striker. It could look like a detail, but… it’s important.

Leandro Trossard, underrated jolly

One more crucial goal for Arsenal but he’s never in the news. What a signing he’s been, a proper bargain as every time he’s called to show his skills… he’s delivering. Excellent move just 14 months ago, the perfect jolly for Arteta.