It was Neil Harris himself who said he wouldn’t pay any attention to the league table until 12 games had been played.

With 14 now under Cambridge United’s belt, and at least 12 played by every team across the division, he might use this little break in league action to load up his preferred football app and look at the third tier table.

What he’ll see is his United side gatecrashing the top half of the table, filled with sides who kicked off the season with very different ambitions to ours.

On the latest Not The Top 20 podcast, host Ali Maxwell described the U’s as ‘the polar bear in Arlington Texas’, a reference to an internet meme that probably doesn’t need too much explaining.

Saturday’s 3-0 loss at Leyton Orient served as a potent reality check. It made it four games without a win, 10 goals conceded in four games, and yet another game where United have conceded first – that’s now nine out of the last 10.

Regardless of opposition, Harris must find a way to reverse these trends. For many, it confirmed the fact that competing for the play-offs was always a pipedream. And with the league table starting to take shape now, looking around the rest of the top half, the size of that challenge is becoming apparent.

Let’s start with the three relegated sides from the Championship. Leicester are the league’s biggest name and have spent a few weeks not being the disaster-class they started the season as. They’re giving Russell Martin’s unique approach some time, and with time and the quality they have available, they might well fulfill their expectations.

Sheffield Wednesday are similar. They’ve recently appointed ex-Stockport boss Dave Challinor, a man who has remarkably never finished outside of the play-offs in his whole managerial career to date.

And finally, Oxford, who are probably the surprise package up in third with rookie manager Aaron Ramsey. Their off-field problems and fixture build-up are a challenge, but their first-choice 11 is high in quality, and the manager has them playing very well.

Huddersfield are the runaway best team in the league, and it’s classic League One that the one game they’ve lost was against bottom-of-the-table Bromley. They’re already five points clear of third.

Stockport look to be picking up where they left off, and Luton and Plymouth similarly have found the blistering form they ended last season with. Reading have enviable firepower with Lisbie, Marriott and co, and Bradford might have a question mark around losing the manager behind their recent success, but they’ve conceded just eight goals all year, so there is plenty sound about them.

All have quality, but so do United, of course. The real challenge probably comes when you look into the mid-term future of the season.

January isn’t that far away, and with it comes the opportunity to invest in the transfer market. It’ll be fascinating to see how the club approaches the window if the team are still in a similar position then as now. Even if their approach were to be to go for it, is it even possible for us to reinforce adequately to compete against these teams? We all agree Harris is an exceptional football manager, but he’s not a miracle worker.

If the U’s are to find that miracle campaign from somewhere, they will have to be close to perfect. And very lucky. Injuries will need to be on our side, the window will have to go as perfectly as it can go within our means, and certain fixtures will need to fall at the right time for us. The margin for error when competing against the resources and backing of the rest of the current top 10 is basically none.

And having said all this, plenty of people reading will not have been hugely convinced by any opposition team we’ve played. In terms of their performance against the U’s, maybe Wycombe, maybe Plymouth, potentially Bradford at a push – the big hitters haven’t blown us away. Which says a lot about the resilience of this United side. On our day, we’re a match for anyone. We just need to hope we can find our day more than we don’t.

It’s another example of the remarkable standards this team is setting itself that, with a third of the season gone, we can realistically still be considering what a run at the play-offs would need to look like. The scale of the challenge is enormous, but while it’s there, it’s not impossible.