MARCUS Harness has signed a new deal with the Brewers that will keep him with the club until the end of the 2019/20 season.
The 22-year-old Academy graduate got his first league goals for Albion with a hat-trick at Rochdale and has impressed Nigel Clough with his rapid improvement this season.
The Albion manager said: “This has been going on a for a few weeks trying to sort him a new deal, not just since Rochdale. He’s been hard to judge as he hasn’t had a run before.
“He has now had a run in the team and he has shown more than enough to suggest he can make the position his own in the future.”
Harness said: “I’m delighted. It has been a mad week and I’m so pleased to start playing in this team. I have worked so hard over the years and it’s started to pay off.
“I believe it has been coming for a long time and it’s finally happening, and my team-mates have been great helping me to develop. The manager has given me a chance and now it’s down to me to take it.”
Meanwhile, going out of the club will be Elliot Hodge and Dimitar Evtimov as their contracts expire this month.
Hodge has never quite managed to force his way into Clough’s thinking after coming in on a short-team deal last summer.
Evtimov came in as goalkeeping cover after both Stephen Bywater and Brad Collins were injured.
Clough said: “Dimitar is training with another club and I have told the manager that you couldn’t wish for a better guy to come in and be around the place. If Brad hadn’t stayed, we would have kept Dimitar straight away.”