I don't think INEOS truly understands the situation if they are taking this long.
Our fanbase has a fundamental problem, in that, when it comes to managers, due to our history of success with SAF, we are naturally passive as a group. A lot of our fans feel its disrespectful to be vocal in advocating for the sacking of a manager, no matter how bad they are. Ours fans and pundits who represent them, will blame every and anyone, before pointing fingers at the manager, this includes the owners.
Despite the feelings of our fans, I have never bought into the notion that the dealings of the Glazers had as much impact, outside of their appointments, on the success of our team on the pitch as people would like to state. Finances were usually made available and the managers always had a big say in who we hired and didn't. What's happened now is that we've understood as a club that manager's can't be trusted with the additional responsibilities that we placed on them, however this doesn't mean that a more serious manager couldn't have assumed those duties and performed well.
More than anythings, our play on the pitch, has been terrible over the decade. In that decade, we've played mostly teams that have inferior squads to us, yet, even in these games, our style of play and patterns were usually non-existant. Good managers, who did not have the backing in the transfer market, would have been able to showcase their quality in these games against inferior competition. An example of this is Arsenal under Wenger. They could beat Everton 5-0 away from home, but didn't have the quality to go toe to toe against the likes of Bayern or Man City. None of our managers have shown that type of quality, yet as a fanbase, we've always given them the time, space, money and support against players to ensure that success should have been feasible. I do not believe that these managers needed such a sophisticated layer of management above them to play decent football on the pitch. That was always just another excuse that fans and the club used to mask managerial failure.
I'm saying this to say, INEOS are going to be the next target of the fans' ire if they don't act fast, even if they sack ETH. The fans have been conditioned to act like this, and part of INEOS' job is to ensure that they make proactive moves to ensure the success of the club. As a club, we need them to be able to make hard decisions, and push us to to modernity, both within the club and with our expectations of managers and players. The media has already shown their willingness to do this by suggesting they hung ETH to dry by meeting other managers in the summer. That's simply a taste of how unfairly they will be blamed if they don't make strong active decisions.