Coventry City entertain Middlesbrough at The Ricoh on Saturday and will be eager to win all three points to keep up the pressure on the teams all chasing promotion.
Middlesbrough will also be keen to take all of the spoils, but for a very different reason, Championship survival. Boro started this campaign as many peoples favourites for promotion, but so far have struggled and are now mired in a relegation battle.
Tony Mowbray took over the reins at Middlesbrough from former Coventry manager Gordon Strachan in an attempt to change their form.
The game on Saturday will see two managers with very different philosophies pit their teams against one another. Boothroyd favours the direct approach using the long ball out of a physical, hard tackling defence, but also using attacking full backs and wingers going on overlaps.
Mowbray favours the swift, short passing game with the ball played on the ground as much as possible. He was praised for his style of play when he gained promotion to the Premier League while in charge of West Brom, but later lambasted in some sections of the press for using the same style of play and tactics that saw the Baggies relegated back to The Championship.
Mowbray took over with Middlesbrough at the wrong end of the table and after several games under his care, they are second from bottom as he struggles to get his team playing n the way he wants.
When asked whether he was surprises at Middlesbrough's failure this season ,Boothroyd said to the CT: "No, nothing really surprises me about the Championship.
"You see how tight it is and we could be talking again in January after seven games and the table could be different again and that's why it is so important we don't look at a team's position in the table but look at their strengths and try to exploit their weaknesses."
The two managers know each other well and Boothroyd thinks that Mowbray's philosophy is not necessarily the right one. He said, "I know Tony and we have had a few battles over the years when I was at Watford and he was at West Brom. I get on really well with him. He's a terrific guy and I look forward to seeing him."
"It is fair to say he has a very different view of the game to me and I think that's why we get on so well. When Tony got promoted with West Brom he was lauded for getting them up and then vilified almost in the media for not having enough steel in his team."
"So too much flair and not enough steel and then when Watford got up in 2006 we had too much steel and not enough flair so that was what was thrown at us from the Match of the Day crowd, but we both understand that your players and your club and tactics, and everything else, is all about winning."
"So I don't go in for 'playing the game the right way' because statements like that are usually made by purists who don't win very often, so as far as I am concerned, playing the right way is winning."