Kallum Higginbotham Player review
Partick Thistle’s forward Kallum Higginbotham has an eye for the extravagant, try typing his name on Youtube and your video results would be “amazing overhead kick by Higginbotham as he does a Rooney”, “Sensational solo goal by Higginbotham”, “most audacious effort ever? Higginbotham hits cross bar straight from kick off” and “Top tekkers from Kallum Higginbotham” as you can tell by these video titles he isn’t afraid to try something different.
At only 24 years old he has already played with 8 different clubs through various transfer and loan deals. At 18 years old he signed for English league one club Oldham Athletic. Despite holding an impressive scoring record in the youth ranks he never made a first team appearance and was released one year into his youth trainee contract.
In 2007 the Salford born attacker signed for English League 2 side Rochdale after three months of as he described “brutal fitness training” he made his professional debut against Rossendale United scoring the winner. After showing a year of promise for Rochdale he was struggling to make the first team due to the emergence of fellow winger Will Buckley who impressed the Rochdale fans and the manager Keith Hill and therefore went out on loan to Accrington Stanley where he played 12 games and assisting 6 goals from the wing.
The 5”11 forwards contract was up at the end of the 2009-10 season and he then signed for the Scottish Division 1 club Falkirk, where he signed a two year contract with “The Bairns”.
In his first year with the Scottish club Higginbotham struggled to find his best form. Although in his second season with at the West coast club he performed incredible and created a formidable partnership with the now Dundee United striker Farid El-Alagui.
In the Scottish League cup semi-final at Hampden against Celtic, Higginbotham was awarded Man of the Match in what turned out to be his final game for the club in a brave 3-1 loss against the Scottish Champions. Throughout his time at Falkirk he made 50 appearances scoring 7 goals in the process.
Despite interest from Scottish giants like Celtic and Rangers in the 2011-12 season Higginbotham returned down South to Huddersfield United on a two and a half year deal. After just 4 first team appearances the forward found himself frozen out of the squad by the newly appointed manager Simon Grayson he moved up a division and joined Barnsley for the remainder of the season. Throughout his time with Huddersfield Simon Grayson never took a liking to Higginbotham’s unorthodox style of play. In total the club put him out on loan to 3 different clubs including Motherwell where he scored his outrageous scissor kick against Hibernian.
At the end of the 2012-13 season Higginbotham was released from his contract by Huddersfield and returned up North to newly promoted Scottish Premiership side Partick Thistle. Since joining Thistle this season he has shined through manager Alan Archibald showing a faith in him that his previous managers have not shown. Making 28 appearances and scoring 6 goals.
The attacker has had mixed reviews from fans across Scotland. Many believe he is a fantastic player with an exceptionally high jump for such a small player and is capable of winning a match almost single handily. Higginbotham also has a brilliant work rate when off the ball, often pressuring defenders to misplace passes. However some describe his playing style as frustrating as when his team are passing the ball about crisply and the ball reaches Higginbotham he tends to make many touches and run around in circles before eventually passing the ball back. All of these statements can be seen as true however I believe that Higginbotham is an asset for any team and when your team needs that one piece of magic to win a match Higginbotham has the nerve and audacity to score that all important goal.
Scout Rating:
Shooting: 9 out of 10
Passing: 8 out of 10
Tackling: 7.5 out of 10
Heading: 8.5 out of 10
Pace: 8.5 out of 10
Skill: 8 out of 10
Vision: 8 out of 10
Current ability: 8.5 out of 10
Potential ability: 9 out of 10
Current value: 1 million
Potential value: 6 million
Article by Joseph James (@josephjamesy00)