IF a sense of perspective was needed after a long and disappointing day that, at one stage, was reportedly set to end with Gary Bowyer losing his job, then it came with the reason for the delay in kick-off at the Amex Stadium.

Seven people were confirmed to have been killed after a plane from the Shoreham Airshow descended into vehicles on the A27.

MORE TOP STORIES:

As you headed out on the road where the fatal crash had taken place, it offered a stark reminder that football is only a game.

It is a game, however, that consumes you and shapes your emotions.

And at the moment Rovers fans are unhappy with the direction their side is heading in.

So much so that when reports, later strongly denied by the club, emerged that Bowyer’s Ewood Park tenure had come to end, they were not met with widespread disapproval on social media.

Other supporters gave their backing to a manager who, in difficult circumstances, has brought much-needed stability to a club where there was none before.

However you can only have stability for so long. You have to keep progressing.

Lancashire Telegraph:

And if one of Bowyer’s biggest achievements is making Rovers – on the field at least – a normal football club again, then a consequence of that is that he is treated like any other manager.

That means when results do not go well, he comes under pressure.

And there is no denying that results are not going well.

This defeat leaves Rovers in the bottom three and stretched their winless start to five games.

That is the longest Bowyer has gone without a victory since he was permanently installed into the Ewood Park hotseat.

But, as he boarded the plane home from Brighton on Saturday night, unaware of the online speculation that was raging over his position, he must have wondered how his team had not recorded their first win of the campaign.

For the second match running they had created more than enough chances to take three points.

But they failed to convert them and there was an air of inevitability when the Seagulls scored with their first shot on target.

Even before the Financial Fair Play embargo that has undoubtedly made Bowyer’s job harder, Rovers have lacked ruthlessness in both boxes.

That was evident again on the sun-kissed south coast.

But, whereas in the past two seasons that inability to see out games has contributed to Rovers’ failure to break into the top six, at the early stage of this season it has left them down with the strugglers.

The performances they have produced in each of their first four matches of the Championship campaign offer encouragement that they will not be among the relegation places for long.

And there is no doubt they will be stronger when Jordan Rhodes returns from the injury that has forced him to miss two successive games for the first time in his Rovers career, and when new signings like debutant Tom Lawrence, Danny Guthrie, Fode Koita and the quietly impressive Hope Akpan get up to speed.

But a win is desperately needed in Friday’s crunch clash with Bolton Wanderers, in particular for Bowyer and for the morale of fans.

The 563 supporters who made the trek to Brighton would have been pleased by the way their side started on Saturday, though.

Despite the late and enforced changes Rovers had to make after Adam Henley and Jason Lowe were taken ill, they were the superior team in the first 30 minutes.

And they would have led had David Stockdale not saved from Koita and Craig Conway, whose touch let him down when clean through on goal.

But, for the fifth game in succession, they fell behind when Lua Lua beat David Raya with the aid of a deflection off the unfortunate Grant Hanley.

It proved to be the winner.

But, while the improved Seagulls did most of the running after the restart, with Raya making a fine double save from Tomer Hemed and Dale Stephens, Rovers continued to carve out the clearest openings.

The best of which fell to Nathan Delfouneso, who side-footed straight at Stockdale, and Shane Duffy, the centre-back and, late on, auxiliary centre-forward who had one header hacked off the line and looped another agonisingly over.