Dario Gradi returned for a third spell as manager of Crewe in October

Crewe manager Dario Gradi has said he will not be signing any new players during the January transfer window.

"We can't afford to bring anyone in anyway, that's the top and bottom of it," Gradi told BBC Radio Stoke.

"We would have to sell to buy. If I told the board I'd found a real bargain, I'm sure they'd have a good go at scraping the money together.

"We don't have much money to spend, and so that's why we do so much work on the kids in our academy."

However, Gradi has revealed that the club are "edging closer" to signing goalkeeper Steve Phillips from Bristol Rovers.

The 31-year-old was offered a permanent contract by Crewe in December, which was dependent on Phillips agreeing a severance payment from his contract with the League One club.

However, complications with that pay-off have led Gradi to consider other options.

"The odds are that we would sign him on loan, with a guarantee that we would sign him at the end of the season," he said.

"We haven't quite got the go-ahead from Bristol Rovers on that, there's still a bit of wording to be done with his agent on that."

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