Wolves winger Matt Jarvis has revealed how fear of losing his place has seen him become a sharpshooter in front of goal amid his stunning form.

Naturally shy and modest off the pitch, the 23-year-old has emerged as a key figure on it in the recent improvement playing a 4-5-1 formation.

Nowhere more so than in front of goal either, as two in his last three games and in four in 12 – exactly half his entire Wolves tally – testifies.

He said: “You’ve got to keep working hard otherwise players will overtake you and I’ll lose my place in the team. So I’ve always got to keep improving and practising to get better.”

Jarvis insisted practice makes perfect with a view to gunning down Everton tomorrow.

A look at the 1-1 draw at Goodison Park in October shows how much things have changed.

Back then, Jarvis had briefly lost his place for the first of Michael Kightly’s three starts and only sweat and toil on the training ground won him his place back – work that has allowed him to add another string to his bow – scoring.

He said: “I’ve been working on the training pitch working on all different scenarios and luckily enough it’s starting to pay off.

“Sometimes I go out early before training with assistant boss Terry Connor and sometimes afterwards, it depends because I don’t want to be doing too much the day before a game.

“But hopefully by working hard, I can keep it going by keeping getting in positions and getting on the scoresheet.”

With a walked-in tap-in at Burnley followed by a rasping drive at West Ham, Jarvis is quickly adding to his repertoire.

He said: “The goals have all been different – some of them quite hard to replicate on the training ground. I’m just happy that everything I’m trying to do is paying off at the minute and hopefully I can score more goals.

“We’ve been working on things like my goal at West Ham in training. Myself and Dave Jones spoke at half-time about him maybe trying to slide me in inside when I run across and it worked perfectly.

“I got the touch that took me across then my first thought was to get the shot away.”

Jarvis just delighted his own form and the team’s is coming together so well.

He said: “Everything’s fantastic, everyone is working for each other which shows in the bond between us and the support because everyone is backing each other up – it’s great.

“We watched the first half on the way back from West Ham on the coach and we didn’t realise how well we’d played. We passed the ball so well, we attacked the ball and created chances and it was really good to watch.”

Not surprisingly, Jarvis believes his form now is better than ever.

He said: “I’m probably playing the best football of my career. It’s been good to get a long run in the team, playing week-in, week-out because that can only be beneficial and being in good form is a great feeling too.

“It’s a relief being fit and touch-wood, I’ve been injury-free. I’m really enjoying it – all I want to do is play games, get the points we need and chip in with a few more goals.”

To that end, Jarvis is working his socks off to support lone striker Kevin Doyle.

With an open invitation to join Doyle whenever possible, his advanced position gives him more license to get into these positions – something the left-sided wide man is desperate to do.

He said: “Myself and Kevin Foley need to support him as much as we can and we’ve been able to get that support to him really quickly.

“When the ball goes to him, we’re either in front or just behind, ready to set him again and it’s paying off dramatically, with the chances we’re creating and the goals we’re scoring.

“Myself and Foley have been working on making sure we’re right up with play, stay in their half and press them up there, rather than being camped in our own half.”

Jarvis reckons Wolves could be in for a cracker as they face Everton.

He said: “They’re in very good form at the moment, so it’s always going to be a tough game. But we can take a lot of positives and confidence from the last three away games.

“We’ll go into this game in front of our home crowd with maybe not as much pressure to perform now.

“We can just play our football and try to get a good result and hopefully the fans can get behind us again.”

Much of Everton’s revival has been put down to the return of fit-again Mikel Arteta, and Jarvis is full of admiration for the Spaniard.

The Wolves winger said: “Mikel is a great player – he’s the sort of player who can make something out of nothing.

“He’s been injured for most of the season which is a shame for Everton, but he’s now showing what a good player he is.”

Whatever the opposition, Jarvis senses Wolves are becoming the genuine Premier League article.

He said: “I hope so. We have worked extremely hard on the shape and everything we’ve done – there’s been a lot of determination and a lot of credit is due to the people who have helped us.

“We have come out of a period of playing well but maybe not getting the results, now we’ve got our rewards in our last three games.

“I think we’ve shown we’ve got to grips with it, we have made sure we’re still in the games away from home by being solid and we’re always going to create chances. We have also been putting them away recently and that’s what’s been the difference.

“Away from home we’re no pushovers and we have nothing to fear – we just go out there and go for it.”