South Africa midfielder Steven Pienaar has agreed a permanent move to Everton worth £2.05-million ($4.09-million), the Premier League club announced on Tuesday.

The playmaker has impressed since moving from Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund on a season-long loan last summer resulting in the Toffees agreeing to a three-year deal keeping him with the club until July 2011.

"Steven has done well for us. He is one of the reasons our football has improved. He is a really good football player," said Everton manager David Moyes of Pienaar who has been a key figure in the club's progress to the League Cup semifinals and the last 16 of the UEFA Cup.

With Everton now hanging on to fifth place in the Premier League, he has scored twice in 35 appearances.

The 26-year-old had been linked with Arsenal, Newcastle and Valencia in recent weeks but his first choice was to stay at Goodison Park.

The South African had recently expressed his concern that a long-term deal was taking too long to sort out, and he feared the agreement Everton had with Borussia Dortmund would run out before the fee had been agreed.

Pienaar was initially a star pupil with Ajax Amsterdam's South African feeder club Ajax Cape Town before moving to Dortmund, where his career stagnated before Everton took him on loan.

AFP

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