Albion's injured defender Tommy Elphick has been awarded a one-year contract extension.

The Brighton-born centre half could now get the chance to play for the Seagulls at The Amex and above League One.

Elphick, 24, has not played since rupturing an Achilles in the last game of last season at Notts County.

He has needed two operations to repair the damage and was due to be out of contract at the end of the season.

The extended deal gives him an opportunity to prove his fitness through the summer and re-establish himself in the first team from the start of next season.

Elphick told The Argus: “It’s a weight off my mind more than anything. It just gives me a chance to take my time and be 100 % fit as opposed to rushing it, trying to get back and feeling under pressure.

“The club have been good to me. The gaffer had conversations with me and always said I would be taken care of.

“It is only a year but it gives me the option to sign a longer term deal if I come back and start doing the business again, which is the way I’m planning it.

“It’s not really a happy ending yet. It will be when I play my first game. Obviously I want to play at the stadium.

“That has always been in the back of my mind but I just want to feel right again, whether it be one man and his dog watching down the park, and get back to what I do best.”

Youth team product Elphick has made 182 appearances for Albion since turning pro in the summer of 2006.

The Seagulls had already wrapped up the League One title when the former player of the season suffered the injury.

“I was just really unlucky,” Elphick said. “I think I would have started this season, the way I ended, and Adam (El-Abd) was obviously out injured.

“I would have been going into the last year of my contract with the power more in my hands in terms of signing a longer term deal with the club but these are the cards I have been dealt this year.

“You can only plan around what you get. The club have given me the opportunity to be in the same situation I was last year, so I’m grateful for that.

“If the club hadn’t extended my contract then I would be rushing back to get fit to go elsewhere or prove myself here again. It just gives me that little bit more time.”

Elphick has played all of his games for Albion in League One aprt from a 17-minute debut as a substitute at Reading in the Championship in 2005 when he was still in the youth team.

Boss Gus Poyet said: “Everybody knows how much the club means to Tommy and he is the only one from last year that hasn’t had the chance to prove himself at this level.

“That is what he wanted. That is what we wanted as well. Now he is going to have the chance.

“We always care about people that have been at the club for a long time.. You don’t want these things to happen to anyone, in particular the people from Brighton.

“It’s a nice agreement for everyone so Tommy can have the opportunity to stay with us for an extra year.”

Meanwhile, on-loan Israeli Gai Assulin (groin) and fringe midfielder Ryan Harley are both expected to be absentees for Middlesbrough’s visit today.

Poyet said: “Gai could be a risk, so we’ll see. We’ve got plenty of options.

“Ryan Harley is not ready. He has a little tendonitis in his knee.”