Peterborough United summer sent out on loan to League Two side

Sparkes only joined the club in the summer and signed a three-year contract.

He was drafted in after number one target Rio Adebisi suffered a knee injury in pre-season and was ruled out for four months; he has subsequently been ruled out for the whole campaign with another issue in the same knee.

The 24-year-old arrived to much fanfare after appearing 38 times for Portsmouth last season to help them lift the League One title.

He has struggled for form, however, and has fallen out of favour at Posh in recent weeks. He has lost has place in the side first to youngster Harley Mills but now to January signing Tayo Edun, who started against Leyton Orient.

Sparkes has made 28 appearances for Posh in all competitions this season but has not featured since New Year’s Day.

Posh boss Darren Ferguson said: “I had a chat with Jack a couple of weeks ago and it was an honest conversation. Sometimes signings don't work out as well as you would hope.

"We wanted to go in a different direction in that position, which is why we brought in Tayo who I thought performed very well on Saturday."