Taking in sales and streams between Friday – Sunday, the record has so far notched up 64,000 chart sales, driven by 32,000 physical sales, 14,000 album downloads and 23.1 million track streams. The album is currently outperforming the rest of the Top 40 combined.

On Sunday’s first Official Chart: First Look (July 14), it was announced that three songs from the album are on course to finish in this week’s Official Singles Chart Top 5: Beautiful People ft. Khalid lifts from 3 to 1, Remember The Name ft. Eminem & 50 Cent is new at 3 and Take Me Back To London ft. Stormzy opens at 4.

Ed’s last album, Divide, opened at Number 1 with 671,542 combined sales in March 2017.

Meanwhile, Lewis Capaldi’s Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent slips to Number 2, and Kylie Minogue’s best of Step Back in Time drops a place to Number 3.

Elsewhere in the in the Top 10, the A Star Is Born cast recording is set for a boost back up the chart after launching on Sky Cinema over the weekend, currently up 20 places to Number 5, and New Order’s live album No,12k, Lg,17Mif New Order + Liam Gillick: So It Goes… starts at Number 10.

Further down, four more brand-new albums could land in this week’s Official Albums Chart Top 40: DMA’s MTV Unplugged – Live album (17), Paul McCartney’s Amoeba Gig recording (21), Life After by indie trio Palace (31) and III by US singer-songwriter Banks (32).