Christian Walton has congratulated his Albion colleagues on promotion – and set his sights on a treble.

The England under-21 international hopes to help Southend grab a League One play-off spot, despite their 1-0 defeat at Shrewsbury yesterday.

He was thrilled to see the Seagulls book their Premier League place by beating Wigan on Monday.

And he hopes Luton Town, where he played on loan for much of this season, move up from League Two under the guidance of Nathan Jones.

Walton is the only senior Albion goalkeeper under contract for next season as things stand and his situation will be assessed over the summer.

He said of the Seagulls’ promotion: “It’s a great thing for the club and it has been coming.

“Everything has been in place for them to go into the Premier League with the new training ground and the stadium so everything is there to make that transition.

“It’s a great thing for the club, the city and I’m delighted for all the lads there.

“It’s a great achievement and one that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.”

Walton is technically serving a series of one-week emergency loans with the Shrimpers due to injury problems at Roots Hall.

In reality his stint in Essex will continue until the end of the season – whenever that comes.

The aim is for it to end at Wembley with that novel hat-trick.

He said: “It would be a good trivia question and I’m really hoping all three teams do it.

“Brighton have already done it but I obviously hope we do it as well, along with Luton where I had a really good spell earlier on in the season.

“They are all such good clubs who deserve to be up there so it would be great if it could happen but obviously Southend is the main one for me at the moment.”

Walton bounced back from a tough 2015-16 season, when he had disappointing loans at Plymouth and Bury, to star for Luton.

He was frustrated to see that cut short when Albion needed to replace the injured Niki Maenpaa on the bench – and delighted when the Southend opening then arose.

The 21-year-old said: “It’s the perfect way for me to be ending the season.

“It’s much better for me than sitting on the bench and I’ll be doing all I can to help the team get the results we need to get into the play-offs.”

Southend remain one place and one point behind Millwall in their race for the final play-off place.

The Shrimpers host Bury in their last match while the Lions are at Bristol Rovers.

Luton have effectively booked their League Two play-off berth as they stand six points and 17 goals clear of eighth place with two rounds of games to go.