COWDEN boss Jimmy Nicholl added three players to the squad before the transfer window shut on Monday night.

Two forwards and a midfielder were fixed up with one of them returning to Central Park.

Anthony Higgins(18) is the younger brother of Sean and after appearing as a trialist in the pre season has been signed on a short term contract until January.

Anthony played for Burnbank Boys Club, Rochsholes Boys Club, Aston Villa Boys Club and The Celtic Boys Club before joining St Johnstone in June 2012.

The forward spent a season in the McDiarmid Park youth set up before joining his hometown club Airdrie last season.

Pat Scullion (28) is back at Central Park for a second spell. The Dunfermline based midfielder was part of the Blues side who won the Third Division Championship in 2006.

Pat started out at Celtic as a youth signing in 2000 and spent four years at Celtic Park before joining Dunfermline Athletic. He later moved to Elgin City before joining Cowden in January 2006.

He went on to score seven times in 77 games for Cowden before moving to Alloa in the close season of 2008. After a season at the Recs he moved to Stenhousemuir.

For the last three years he has been playing for Clyde but left the Broadwood Stadium side last week by mutual consent.

The close of the transfer window saw Jimmy Nicholl sign forward Calum Gallacher (19) on loan from Championship rivals Rangers until the New Year.

The Glasgow born forward, who will turn 20 on 13th September, was signed by Dundee United as a 13 year old and spent a year in the Arabs youth system before joining the Giffnock Soccer Centre.

In September 2010 he joined the Rangers youth set up and signed his first professional contract with the Ibrox side the following June.

During his time with Rangers Calum has had spells on loan at Alloa in season 2012/13 and East Stirlingshire last season.

Cowden sit at the bottom of the Championship table after four games and a big improvement is needed if they are to get away from that position.

After the Alloa defeat Cowden were hoping to put one over their old local rivals Raith Rovers, but on the day they played second fiddle.

Too many errors saw Rovers have plenty of chances and they took three of them to plunge Cowden into the basement alley.

With Alloa beating Hibs and Dumbarton overcoming Livingston Cowden are two points adrift of the last two mentioned sides.

It means when Cowdenbeath go to Easter Road after the international break this coming weekend, they will be looking for a win which would plunge the capital side to the foot of the table.

Cowden boss Jimmy Nicholl described the performance against Raith as ‘horrific’. He said, “Against Alloa we made far too many mistakes and were punished, but at Falkirk last Tuesday night, we were much improved and could well have won the game before losing in a penalty shoot-out.

“I was looking for the team to continue that in the Raith game, for being a home fixture, we had to look to win it but, no, we simply did not play at all.

“It was simply horrific and we have to put things right before we play Hibs away from home.” But it is virtually certain that he will have to take on the Hibees, who have also made an awful start to the Championship campaign, without skipper John Armstrong and full-back Kenny Adamson, who are both suffering from bad knocks. Adamson’s metatarsal injury could put him out until Christmas while Armstrong may make the Hibs game but it will be touch and go.

Adamson faces an operation and then there will be a recovery period which will take some weeks.

Also nursing injuries are Nat Wedderburn, who limped off on Saturday, and Sammy Stewart but who is on the mend.