Heitinga's Perfect Week

Player of the Season delighted to sign off with a goal.

John Heitinga hailed his 'perfect week' after helping Everton hold off Liverpool to secure Merseyside bragging rights.

Heitinga was named the Club's Player of the Season on Thursday and celebrated by bagging his first league goal of the campaign in Sunday’s comprehensive 3-1 defeat of Newcastle.

The victory meant David Moyes’ side ended the campaign in seventh place, ahead of Liverpool and Fulham.

And though the finish wasn't enough to secure Europa League football, the Dutchman believes the Blues should be proud of their effort.

"It's been a perfect week," Heitinga said in an exclusive interview with evertontv. "We're above Liverpool so everybody's happy. I'm happy, the team is happy and I think all the fans are happy.

"I think we played quite well. We had two early goals which helped us of course. But there was only one team which deserved to win and that was us.

"It's important we finished above Liverpool because we know the history, we know it's only happened twice in the last 20 years, so we're happy. We're happy with the season and hopefully we can start better next season.”

Heitinga's only other goal this season came in the FA Cup third round victory over Tamworth and the 28-year-old admitted it was a relief to finally end his Premier League drought.

"I was waiting the whole season for the goal," he said. "I'm glad I got it today.

"Now we have the Euros and after that we start all over. And then you start with zero points and hopefully we can do better than this year at the start. If we play like we have been recently for the whole year we can surprise everyone."