The Courteeners are on track to spoil Eminem’s 20-year run of number one albums.
The Manchester indie band are expected to score their first chart-topping album with sixth record More. Again. Forever.
It is currently 2,000 chart sales ahead of Eminem’s controversial 11th record, Music To Be Murdered By, according to the Official Charts Company.
Eminem, real name Marshall Bruce Mathers III, made history by becoming the first artist to have nine consecutive UK number one albums, following the success of 2018’s Kamikaze.
Every one of the Grammy-winning rapper’s albums since 2000’s The Marshall Mathers LP have topped the charts in the UK.
But the Courteeners, best known for songs such as Not Nineteen Forever and Take Over The World, could block Eminem from extending his record.
Music To Be Murdered By has drawn criticism for including a song in which the rapper compares himself to the perpetrator of the Manchester Arena terror attack.
In the song Unaccommodating, he says: “I’m yelling ‘bombs away’ on the game, like I’m outside of an Ariana Grande concert waiting.”
Elsewhere in the charts, Bombay Bicycle Club return after a six-year absence with Everything Else Has Gone Wrong, which sits at number three.
US singer Halsey’s third album Manic is on course for number five while Louise Redknapp’s first record in 20 years, Heavy Love, is at number seven.
The posthumous Mac Miller album Circles is at number nine.
On the singles chart Eminem’s Godzilla featuring Juice Wrld is battling Stormzy’s Own It for number one.