GEORGE McCartney has signed a new five-year contract with West Ham United.

The 27-year-old left-back has committed his long term future to the Irons just weeks after the Hammers turned down a £4.5million offer from former club Sunderland.

McCartney, who moved to Upton Park in a £1million four-year deal in the summer of 2006, was voted runner-up in last season's Hammer of the Year competition.

The Belfast-born Northern Ireland international has scored once - with a spectacular volley against Bolton Wanderers last November - in 69 league and cup appearances for Alan Curbishley's side.

The reliable defender becomes the second first-team regular to pen a new deal this summer following striker Dean Ashton, who signed a five-year contract in June.

Both players are now contracted to remain at the Boleyn Ground until 2013.

One player who is unlikely to sign improved terms is goalkeeper Robert Green, who claimed he was under-valued and the lowest-earner of the Hammers' first team line-up "by a long, long way".

But chief executive Scott Duxbury has confirmed that the Hammer of the Year, who earns around £25,000-a-week, will not be offered a new deal until the summer of 2009, having signed a five-year contract last summer.

Green has been linked with a summer move to Aston Villa, who are on the lookout for a number one following the departures of on-loan Scott Carson and Denmark international Thomas Sorensen.