MATCH-WINNER Shane Duffy admits the players want to know as much as the fans if Blackburn Rovers will be given the chance to ‘kick on’ next season.

Boss Paul Lambert will walk away from the club at the end of the campaign after failing to receive assurances from the club’s owners Venky’s.

The players put the ‘shock’ of his announcement behind them to return to winning ways with a 1-0 victory at Rotherham United on Saturday.

Duffy, whose fourth goal of the season settled the New York Stadium encounter, says they were hoping Lambert would get the backing he wanted.

That has not materialised and Venky’s have now started the search for the seventh full-time manager of their Rovers rein.

But whoever takes over the Ewood Park hotseat Duffy knows there has to be an improvement in the 2016-17 campaign.

The centre-back said: “The gaffer saying he was going was a shock to everyone but that’s football.

“It’s one of those things and we’re professional enough to try and get on with it. When you get setbacks like that you’ve got to go out there and play for the club – and that’s what we did.

“We’ve got to perform better than we have done this season but it’s got to kick on next year and the sooner we all know the better it will be for the club.

“We are starting to get a team together and everyone hoped he would have got backed and some exciting players would have come in and we could build and aim for the play-offs.

“You never know, next year we could still be at it, but we have to try and keep the better players out of contract and then see what happens.”

Rovers ended their six-match winless run after becoming the first side to beat Rotherham in 12 games.

The success moved them up to 15th in the table ahead of the final game of the campaign at home to Reading on Saturday.

And Duffy reckons it was the least they could do for the supporters after a ‘tough’ week.

“They were brilliant and they’ve been brilliant all year,” said the Republic of Ireland international of the 1,225 travelling fans.

“It’s been tough for them after the week they’ve had and, given the numbers that turned out, it was great to give them an away win like that.

“It was hard, it was tough, it was ugly, but it’s what we knew would happen.

“We knew all week what they’re about and we got the goal early on, dropped in, and they didn’t break us down. The game plan worked.

“And it could have been more. Their goalkeeper pulled off some good saves but so did ours, though, so it works both ways. 1-0, let’s get out of there.”

Lambert told his players about his decision to leave on Thursday afternoon.

And Duffy said: “We just tried to stay professional behind the scenes. You want to go out there and do well for the fans and for yourself.

“I know it’s been a tough week for everyone but you’ve got to go out there and play for the badge. You’ve got to go out there and do it – and we did that.”