Noel Gallagher 1, Matt Cardle 0

officialcharts.com:

has started the week in the lead in his race for Number 1 with , one of the first big chart battles of the autumn. After two days sales have been counted (up to midnight last night),’s new album 'High Flying Birds' has a significant lead over ’s 'Letters' release in their chase for top spot in the Official Albums Chart – 55,000 sales vs 28,000 sales.

But the former man was always expected to get an early fan-base driven kick of sales. And, with supermarket sales unlikely to make a big impact until later in the week, is likely to narrow that gap over the coming days.

The rivalry between the two albums has been built up over the past couple of weeks, with revealing that he had turned down an offer from to be a judge on and criticising the