BLACKBURN Rovers’ decline began the moment Venky’s took over the club. The facts are there in black in white.

From mid-table in the Premier League to bottom of the Championship. From £20m in the red to £100m of debt and counting. From attendances of 25,000 to crowds of barely half that.

But on a warm and wet night in the Welsh capital it felt like a new low.

How could it not with the sight of a Rovers player scoring two own goals – his second and third in two games – and then getting himself sent off?

There is no excusing Shane Duffy’s defending or his total dereliction of duties in receiving the most ridiculous and reckless of second yellow cards.

But if, to borrow a phrase from football parlance, ‘his head was not right’, you also have to consider the role the club’s owners have played in his current mind-set.

Whether there was a manager in place or not, Venky’s should have offered Duffy and Ben Marshall new contracts long before they entered the final year of their existing deals.

Now the club is backed into a corner. Continue to select players who, on present performances, are not playing like they want to be here – or sell them for a price which will be reduced to the one Rovers would have received had they at least attempted to tie the duo down to fresh terms sooner.

If the club is going to continue to pay for the mistakes made by Venky’s by selling assets, then they cannot afford to get in the situation they are in with Duffy and Marshall.

But then again, after Duffy and Marshall, how many saleable assets do Rovers have left?

From Phil Jones to Steven N’Zonzi, Martin Olsson to Scott Dann, Tom Cairney to Rudy Gestede, Jordan Rhodes to Grant Hanley, and others in between, the quality has drained away.

No club can afford to keep losing players of that calibre and expect to progress.

But that is especially the case when many of those players have been replaced by free transfers or loans.

No-one is expecting Rovers to spend silly money and make the club’s financial position even more precarious; a position for which, of course, the blame ultimately lies with Venky’s. The losses and the debts have happened on their watch.

But there has to be a balance. It cannot keep being cut after cut after cut.

There is no way Owen Coyle and his players can escape criticism after what has been, for a few briefs spell here and there, a wretched and worrying start to the league campaign.

But Venky’s have to release funds for paid-for signings especially if Duffy and Marshall follow Hanley and the others out of the revolving Ewood Park exit door.

At the moment the club is stuck between a rock and a hard place – and the people who are suffering the most are the fans.

No matter what happens over the next fortnight, when three home matches are followed by the close of the transfer window, an increasing of number of Rovers supporters have had enough. They want Venky’s out.

But, in their last form of rare communication, the Rao family made it clear they had no intention of selling the club.

But what are they getting out of this? And if their stance remains the same why not run the club better?

Get someone in at the top of the club who they trust and who they empower to make important and, crucially, swift decisions. Invest in the squad. Engage with a dwindling and disenchanted fan base.

But, after six years of Venky’s reign, supporters will not be holding their breath.