THEY handed out the goal of the season gong early at Everton this year.

The recipient was correct only they got the wrong game.

Diniyar Bilyaletdinov scooped the prize for his eye-catching strike against Manchester United at last week’s end of season awards ceremony.

Granted, it was a great goal. But on pure aesthetic quality you’re unlikely to see a finer struck ball than his injury time effort that snatched maximum points against Portsmouth at Goodison Park yesterday.

Such had been the frustration of this deadest of rubbers that the only thing missing when the fourth official raised his board to display four extra minutes was a collective groan.

Prolonging a season that promised so much but ultimately delivered little was not on anyone’s wish list prior to kick-off.

With Everton rooted to eighth in the table regardless of this result, and Pompey relegated weeks ago, there wasn’t much to get too excited about.

Bilyaletdinov’s stunning winner put paid to that notion though, and in the swing of the Russian’s lethal left boot, the mood was lifted and faith was restored that Everton have much to look forward to next season.

Such are the margins between success and failure in football at times that had it remained goalless there would no doubt have been those who’d have drifted off into summer scratching their heads.

Instead, Bilyaletdinov’s wonder goal has placed a different emphasis on an end of season sequence that now extends to 12 games unbeaten.

It is Everton’s best run of results in the Premier League and surpasses an 11-match streak from December 1985 to March 1986.