Lee Johnson says that, even as the longest-serving manager in the Championship, he learns something new against every opposition coach he encounters.
The Bristol City boss was speaking on Anthony Hudson's Masterminds podcast and explained that he felt the Championship is the perfect league for a young manager to earn his stripes.
Having come up against the likes of Marcelo Bielsa and Jaap Stam, Johnson believes it is one thing to watch from afar, but also a valuable opportunity to learn when in the thick of the action on the touchline.
He said: "The Championship is an outstanding league for a young coach that is learning the game.
"As it stands I'm the longest-serving coach in the Championship and there hasn't half been some good quality that's come and gone in that time.
"You've only got to look at the likes of Jaap Stam and some of the patterns of play, you could really see the Dutch style he brought to that Reading side that was successful in getting to the play-offs, and then the likes of Sheffield United and the way they work their 3-5-2 with overlapping centre-halves.
"It's almost an education, every game that you're going into.
"It coincides in probably the top man in the world in terms of Bielsa.
"It's very interesting to not only watch his teams and study but it's another thing to feel it as a coach against such a top coach.
"Coupled with the fact we've been lucky enough to have good cup runs and go against the likes of Mourinho's Manchester United and Guardiola's Manchester City, it's been a fantastic education for me, the last four years, and long may it continue."
Johnson was also asked about how he approaches his coaching philosophy, and whether he builds his philosophy around the players available or vice versa.
The City boss said it is something that should be implemented over time.
"First port of call is to stay in a job and survive," he explained.
"Survival is making educated decisions based on the players you've got, without a doubt.
"Then the more time you've earned through that short-term survival and success gives you the opportunity to really bed in your principles of play.
"Then there's fine adjustments. To give you an example, we've got a right midfielder in Marley Watkins, who is a strong, powerful boy, very good runner in terms of the way he moves in a straight line.
"He's aggressive, good physical contact, but he struggles in the pocket, whereas we have Callum O'Dowda, for example, who is similar in terms of his athletic profile, maybe not as physically dominant, but is very comfortable at receiving the ball in the pocket.
"Depending on what you've got at full-back will depend on enhancing the attributes of the winger.
"We've had spells where we've had to play with a centre-half at right-back, in which case we've wanted our wide man to stay extremely wide, because the right-back becomes a support rather than a marauder who'll overlap or underlap.
"At that point our left-back can be a little more expansive.
"When you're recruiting, it's really important that every player you recruit can perform in your mind's eye as well as possible in your defined philosophy.
"That's the key, because you can't always pick where you go into, you'll very rarely get a job where everyone's flying and the team is set in stone.
"You're going to have to evolve a squad and the art of good coaching is evolution and how you take a player on his journey from the starting point to the destination.
"That's a never ending task that we really should enjoy and that's the process I enjoy most about football management, which is a team building exercise."
