Spotlight on Stale Solbakken after Mick McCarthy's Wolves return

But as it transpired the spotlight was glaring very brightly on Stale Solbakken's shiny bald dome after another pitiful performance.

You can always rely on Wolves to ruin your festive holidays.

Two abject, woeful, pathetic displays have seen us take two steps back after what was previously a decent December.

At least Peterborough belied their lowly league position and beat us impressively and convincingly.

Ipswich though were no great shakes but we transpired to muster an absolutely disgraceful haul of just two shots on target in 90 minutes.

The second half in particular was as bad as I've witnessed at Molineux in many a year.

To barely threaten the Ipswich penalty area, let alone the goal, was unforgivable and left most of Molineux stunned into silence, with the rest showing their displeasure with damning boos.

Perhaps the worst thing about this whole charade was that you look at our XI and it was arguably - a fit Jamie O'Hara aside - our best team on paper.

What on earth is happening in that dressing room, I have no idea.

One thing for certain is that there's no team spirit in there to speak of and Solbakken looks clueless as to how to galvanise them in the way that McCarthy could in the first five years he was here.

People like Kevin Foley and Stephen Ward, who would run through a brick wall for our former boss, always wore the shirt with pride and very rarely let the side down, are making error after error and their confidence is completely shot.

As a team we look completely bereft of ideas and of fight, with the vast majority of the players simply going through the motions.

I'd love to know what Solbakken was instructing them to do in the days and hours leading up to the game because there was no coherent game-plan to speak of.

Whenever we were in possession at the back there was endless passing from side to side, occasionally they'd nudge it to David Davis or Karl Henry who were immediately closed down by the Ipswich midfield - something we failed to do in return.

Or it'd get chucked up towards the largely disinterested front two, bounce off them and come straight back.

The wingers were barely in the game - Bjorn Sigurdarson didn't seem to know where he was playing and Bakary Sako was mostly anonymous and yet again astonishingly selfish when well advanced.

And Carl Ikeme's distribution was atrocious - in short we had no starting point, no platform, from which to launch a single meaningful attack.

They're so laboured in possession, taking endless touches and moving the ball far too slowly, that we won't even fathom a chance by good fortune with a hurried punt into the box.

It's dreadful to watch and we must be incredibly easy to play against.

What we've got is a bunch of players who just don't want to play for Solbakken, or have no inclination to buy into his ideas.

Nine or the starting XI were here when Mick packed his bags in February and it's getting to the point where that is Solbakken's only saving grace.

Until it's his side he can't be properly judged, although if results continue like this it will get harder and harder to justify that statement.

Because if Solbakken can't get the basics right between now and the end of the season, as in preparing a team in the short term to even put up a fight against the likes of Ipswich and Peterborough, then he's got some serious deficiencies as a manager.

A week ago things didn't look so bad but it's the abject nature of the last two performances which have infuriated the fans and highlighted our shortcomings.

So what happens now?

Well the current situation has been forged by Steve Morgan.

He alone chose to sack Mick with terrible timing in February, he alone appointed Terry Connor whose disastrous reign demoralised the entire club beyond recognition, and he alone appointed Solbakken with a vision of constructing a modern, technical side which could compete in the Premier League in the long term.

If Morgan still believes in that vision he must now hand Solbakken the means with which to replenish this lame duck of a squad.

January is a pivotal moment in Solbakken's tenure, not just for the remainder of this season but for 2013-14 too.

For the here and now we're in desperate need of at least three new defenders, some experienced and wise heads and a hungry, pacey goalscorer.

And he continues to go down the foreign route then the rest of 2012-13 will give them a good opportunity to bed in and be raring to go by next August.

He could also look to use a couple of younger players who have impressed on loan but not yet been given the chance to prove themselves here - Jake Cassidy and Danny Batth.

It worked last year with Davis, who incidentally was the only one to emerge from Saturday with any credit and has easily outshone the lacklustre Tongo Doumbia lately.

But something has to be done, because we will not stomach another five months of the kind of dross served up over Christmas.

The 7,000 extra supporters who took advantage of a free ticket offer and bumped up the attendance certainly won't be back either - and that's the kind of logic our business-brain of a chairman certainly does relate to.

Back him or sack him - Mr Morgan, it's over to you.