Speedy striker closing in on a major milestone as he prepares to bring a lengthy Peterborough United association to an end

The 22 year-old is expected to leave London Road in the summer when his current contract expires and that would end a 13-year association with his hometown club.

Jones joined the Posh Academy aged eight and has racked up 198 appearances for his only club, a massive 90 as a substitute. All being well Jones will make his 200th appearance in the Easter Monday game at Barnsley. He’s scored 41 goals, but his pace has become a huge weapon and he caused Birmingham City plenty of problems in Sunday’s 2-0 Vertu Trophy Final win.

Jones is one of seven players to have appeared in the last two EFL Trophy Finals at Wembley for Posh. Jed Steer, Jadel Katongo, Archie Collins, Hector Kyprianou, Kwame Poku and Malik Mothersille are the others.

Posh won the game with high quality first-half goals from Harley Mills and Hector Kyprianou.

“Some players don’t get to play at Wembley once,” Jones told the Posh Plus service. “So to play there twice in two seasons with so many members of my family and friends there is a bit surreal. It’s amazing really,

"And we couldn’t have asked for much more from Sunday’s game. We scored two amazing goals and we won at Wembley again, and it can’t get a lot better than that. I see the sort of quality Harley Mills can bring to a game every day in training. There is something about left-backs at this club. We had Harrison Burrows starring at Wembley last season and now we have Harley. They both have a wand of a left foot.

"Playing at Wembley can be weird. The pitch is so big you feel you are running hard and not actually getting anywhere, but you have to do what’s best for the team and keep going. I did feel I should have had a penalty in the second-half, but when I realised I wasn’t on penalties I soon got up!

"It was never going to matter as we defended so well and Jed Steer was saving everything.

"The fact we were big underdogs was spoken about a lot as was the number of fans Birmingham were bringing, but our fans made more noise anyway.”

Posh chairman revealed on his ‘Hard Truth' podcast recently that the club made every effort to persuade Jones to stay for another season at least, but if he does leave he will go with the club’s best wishes.

Posh still expect to bank millions from his departure even though he is out of contract. As Jones is under 24 and an Academy graduate a tribunal will most likely set a fee.

"We wanted Ricky to stay for another season and win the Golden Boot,” MacAnthony said. “But he, his family and his agent seem to want to go in a different reaction and I understand that.”

Jones has scored 16 goals for Posh this season, nine of them in League One.