Crewe manager Gradi has signed two strikers from non-league this season

Crewe have completed the signing of striker Jordan Connerton from Lancaster City on a three-year contract.

Connerton has scored 35 goals this season and will immediately return to the Unibond Division One club on loan for the rest of the campaign.

"We've known about him for a while and he's different to what we've got," boss Dario Gradi told BBC Radio Stoke.

Connerton, now 20, made his debut for Lancaster as a 16-year-old and has also had a short spell with Chorley Town.

Gradi has defended the decision to award him a three-year deal, and is confident that Connerton could follow in the footsteps of the likes of Luke Varney, another striker the club plucked from non-league obscurity.

"There's no point in signing him until the end of the season because he'll be no better than he is now," said Gradi.

"The fairest thing for him is to give him time, because Varney took over two years to come through. That was money well spent, and if he does as well as Varney, we'll be delighted."

Connerton is the second striker Crewe have signed from a non-league club this season, the other being Danny Gardner from Flixton in February.

"You get to a point where you think something may never happen," Connerton told BBC Radio Stoke. "I carried on plugging away and scoring goals, and Crewe have taken a chance on me.

"I'll have to work hard to try to repay them, and I'm sure I will."

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