• Contract talks ongoing for club’s player of the year
• Pienaar: ‘Hopefully we can kick on from here to next season’

Steven Pienaar is confident the future is bright for Everton, and insists he wants to be part of it.

The South Africa midfielder has been the subject of speculation linking him with other clubs after an outstanding season at Goodison Park. Tottenham, Liverpool and Chelsea are all reported to be monitoring the 28-year-old’s situation as he enters the final year of his contract.

Everton are keen to secure the player on a new deal but negotiations have yet to reach a satisfactory conclusion.

Pienaar, one of the side’s most influential players throughout their strong second half of the season, was named the club’s player of the year yesterday. Asked about the future, he said: “Hopefully we can kick on from here to next season and the coming years.

“We have got the potential. The people behind the club really want it to happen and so do the players.” When then asked if he wanted to stay to be part of any future success, he added: “For sure, why not?”

Pienaar, who joined Everton from Borussia Dortmund for £2m three years ago, has scored seven goals in 37 appearances in all competitions this season. He missed last week’s goalless draw at Stoke with a minor ankle injury but expects to be fit for the final game of the season against Portsmouth on Sunday.

Everton know they will finish eighth in the Premier League, and therefore short of European qualification, whatever the outcome but are satisfied with that position after a terrible start. They were 16th with just 15 points after 14 games but have lost just twice in 23 outings since.

“The whole team has been responsible for our play,” Pienaar said. “We have been giving 120% to show the supporters why they have been spending so much money to watch us. They deserve nice football.”

Everton team-mate Leighton Baines, who is hoping to win a call-up to the England squad, was voted players’ player of the year. The left-back has missed just four games all season.

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Today’s fluff still loves Shine 97

It’s Monday morning at 5.19, and the Mill is still wondering where you’ve been. Because every time we try to call, we just get your machine. And now it’s almost 6am, and we don’t want to try again. Because if you’re still not back, heaven knows, what then? Maybe we can distract ourselves with some tittle-tattle (and try to forget the fact that a) the Mill was struggling so badly for a riff this morning that we resorted to simply typing the lyrics of Rialto’s 1997 hit Monday Morning 5:19 and b) that we didn’t need to look the lyrics up).

Manchester United and Everton are battling it out to sign Bob Schepers, who sounds like he should be presenting a documentary about farming on Radio 4, but is in fact a 17-year-old Dutch winger for SC Cambuur. He played in Holland U17’s run to the European Championship final, and is also making a small blipping noise “on Ajax’s radar”.

Chelsea have £50m to spend this summer and it’ll all go on Kaká. Or Fernando Torres. Or Sergio Agüero. Or Bastian Schweinsteiger. Or possibly Dani Alves, who has also been linked with Manchester City in the Spanish newspaper Sport.

Liverpool have dipped for the line and pipped Chelsea, Tottenham and Arsenal in the race for Charlton’s Jonjo Shelvey. As Rafa Benítez waves to the crowd from the top of the podium, a faceless man in a suit hands him a bunch of flowers and drapes the £3m-rated teenage utility man around the Liverpool manager’s neck.

And to complete the contractually-obliged big four round-up, Arsenal were rather laughably linked with a move for Pepe Reina over the weekend.

Elsewhere, West Brom will bolster their Premier League survival bid next season by signing two players who failed to keep their teams up in this campaign. Hull’s Jimmy Bullard and Burnley’s Steven Fletcher are the smart buys.

Steve Coppell wants to turn the 2010-11 Bristol City side into the 2007-08 Reading team. The signings of Dave Kitson, Ivar Ingimarsson and James Harper will be the easy part. Bringing in blue and white hoops might be a little trickier.

It’s Everton v Blackburn for Getafe’s £10m-rated striker Roberto Soldado.

Wigan will move for Celtic’s Marc Crosas over the summer and will subtly attempt to placate sceptical Latics fans by continually describing him as “a former Barcelona and Lyon midfielder” on the club website.

And Paris St-Germain have a hankering for dynamic but erratic full-backs and will satisfy their hunger by snapping up West Ham’s Henry Ilunga and Portsmouth’s Nadir Belhadj.

LiverpoolArsenalCharlton AthleticChelseaManchester UnitedEvertonJohn Ashdownguardian.co.uk

Aston Villa 2 2 Everton

An evening that started with Aston Villa hoping to keep alive their faint hopes of playing in the Champions League next season ended with Martin O’Neill’s players clinging to European qualification of any description. Phil Jagielka’s own goal in injury-time denied Everton only a second league win on this ground in 22 attempts and allowed Villa to maintain a healthy, and perhaps crucial, four-point gap over David Moyes’ side in the race for the final Europa League place.

Villa’s ambitions can no longer stretch beyond taking part in that competition after this result, which leaves them seven points behind fourth-placed Manchester City with five games remaining.

For long periods it looked like Everton would be breathing down their necks, but despite regaining the lead through Tim Cahill’s second headed goal of the evening, the visitors were forced to settle for a point when late Villa pressure yielded an equaliser through the unfortunate Jagielka.

The FA Cup semi-final defeat, and the referee Howard Webb’s part in it, was never going to be far from Villa minds and it took only 23 minutes for Martin Atkinson to anger the home supporters. His contentious decision to award a free-kick against Stephen Warnock for a challenge on Leon Osman around 25 yards from goal prompted a chorus of abuse for the official from the Holte End, and from the set-piece that followed there was a sense of inevitability that a goal would come.

And so it proved as Cahill put Everton in front with a neat header. At first glance it looked like he had been left completely unmarked to nod beyond a stranded Brad Friedel, but television replays showed how Richard Dunne lost his man. The central-defender took his eye off Cahill for a split second and the midfielder took full advantage as he gave Dunne a slight nudge in the back to push himself away before tearing towards the six-yard box and stooping to convert his eighth goal of the season.

It was far from the first time that a confident and well-organised Everton side had threatened – Osman drew a smart save from Brad Friedel in the 14th minute with a first-time left-foot shot from the edge of the area and Diniyar Bilyaletdinov troubled the home goalkeeper seconds later from point-blank range – although Villa also had their share of decent chances during an open and entertaining first half.

The best of those opportunities fell to Carlos Cuéllar three minutes before the interval, but after the impressive James Milner forced an error from Sylvain Distin before delivering a fine cross to the back post, the Spaniard saw his downward header brilliantly kept out by Tim Howard’s left hand. It was Howard’s second fine stop of the night, the Everton goalkeeper having earlier turned Milner’s sweeping right-foot shot behind following a flowing move on the Villa left flank.

Villa fans have booed the team off at half-time on a couple of occasions this season but now their anger at the interval was reserved for Atkinson.

The mood, however, started to change after the interval as Villa dominated possession but struggled to penetrate the Everton defence. That has become a familiar theme at home this season – the previous seven league matches here had yielded only one Villa victory – with O’Neill’s players often lacking the imagination to prise open obdurate opponents.

When the first Villa equaliser did arrive it was no surprise Milner was the architect. Villa’s most influential player delivered an inviting centre that Gabriel Agbonlahor glanced past Howard from about eight yards. Everton’s response, however, was instant. Osman raced down the other end of the field and although Warnock’s well-timed challenge prevented a shot on goal, Cahill found space in the area from the corner that followed and for the second time headed beyond Friedel. It looked destined to be the winner until Jagielka’s faux pas.

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