TAKING a leaf out of Manchester City’s book helped Elliott Frear grab Forest Green’s match-winning goal over Cheltenham Town.

Frear revealed Mark Cooper’s meticulous attention to detail helped Rovers to a stellar victory over their arch-rivals to leap to the top of League Two.

“Me and Ebs (Ebou Adams) have been working on the sort of run Manchester City do all the time,” said Frear.

“Obviously Kevin De Bruyne pings it in and Sterling scores it and we worked on it all week and it obviously paid off.”

Without a club since leaving Premiership Motherwell last summer, Frear’s career had hit a wall until a call from Cooper reignited his fortunes.

And three games into his second spell at Forest Green, the speedy left winger endeared himself once more to the fans with a full-throttle display to compliment a collective team performance.

Frear added: “Tactically we were spot on from start to finish, obviously 2-0 is quiet a scary scoreline , but I thought the lads saw out the game superbly.

“ The gaffer (Mark Cooper) put a game plan together from Monday and we knew exactly what we were doing. We started off the game really well and set traps for them and managed to get two goals up in the first-half.

“Cheltenham are a good team and we knew they would come at us and it was a bit of a soft goal to concede, but the boys saw out the game superbly.

“ We learned from our mistakes in the Mansfield game, when we were 2-0 up and they pegged us back.”

And Frear admitted he could have helped himself to a hat-trick with a decent chance before his first-half goal and another opportunity after the break.

“Heading isn’t my strong point,” said Frear. “I actually headed it too well and I was surprised. M y right foot isn’t brilliant, but I was delighted with the winning goal and to get that winning feeling.”

Home is where the heart is and Frear is happy to be back on a familiar footing.

He said: “This is my club and I’m happy to be here, I love all the people around the club and all the fans who turned out today were brilliant and we’ve Just got to back it up next week against Billericay in the FA Cup.”

Frear revealed he almost joined Cheltenham during his first spell at the New Lawn, but  opted for  Motherwell over the Robins.

“I chose to go and try something different and have absolutely no regrets about doing that and obviously I’m delighted to be back at FGR.

“It was a long summer, I’m just delighted to be back out there and getting that winning feeling and being part of the team. The goal meant a lot and to get off the mark and I want to kick-on as I didn’t score enough goals in my first spell and hopefully I can go on and score a few more.”

Promotion is the goal for Frear, who almost joined League One Oxford United in the summer.

He said: “The target is promotion, we have lot of games left and I know it’s an old cliché but we are just going to take it one game at a time, but we are delighted to be top of the league and we are just going to keep ourselves to ourselves and keep going."

WATCH Elliott Frear's post-match interview now