Villa hero John Carew is back in the mood to re-light the claret and blue touchpaper in the crunch end-of-season programme for the club.

The big Norwegian international is once more the toast of the Holte End, after returning to his best goalscoring form which saw two more against Wolves take his tally to 13 in an injury-wrecked season.

Carew has re-emerged as the talisman for a Villa team which stuttered on Saturday and must now beat Sunderland at Villa Park tomorrow night to get their challenge for a fourth-place Premier League finish back on track.

But the popular 6ft 4in striker is looking to provide the flourish which may yet inspire cup and league success.

He said: “I was struggling with injuries for a couple of months and struggling to get fit. But finally I got rid of the pain and the small niggles and now I’m 100 per cent fit.

“I’ve been fit for a month now, things have been going great the last few weeks, I’m enjoying being back playing at 100 per cent fitness and happy to be an important part of the team.

“I hope I can continue to be an important part of the team until the season is over, because we have a very important few weeks left.

“I’m still trying to improve all of the time. We can always do better but we’re doing quite well and have great potential in the whole team and I think all the players can improve despite different ages.

“But I hope I can play like this in the remaining games as well.”

Carew’s presence is even more vital now that 14-goal Gabby Agbonlahor has run into injury problems which could again keep him out against Steve Bruce’s side.

But individual tallies are of no interest to the Norwegian until the campaign has closed.

He said: “I think the most I’ve scored in a season is 17 or something and I’ve got 13 this season. But I don’t think much about tallies. I’m happy when the ball goes in the net. I work very hard on that and it’s paying off.

“But I’m not thinking much about it. It’s about the team. When you’re on holiday, you can look at how many goals you’ve scored.

“Right now, it’s just like moving from one game to another and we go to try to win and whether I or somebody else scores, it doesn’t really matter as long as we get the points.”