EVERTON are ready to test Newcastle United's resolve to hold on to Gary Speed by lodging a shock £6m bid for the Wales skipper.

United chairman Freddy Shepherd has already warned the Merseysiders they would be wasting their time if they tried to prise Speed away from St. James' Park.

The player himself has also made it known privately that he would not welcome a return to Goodison Park after his acrimonious exit nearly two-and-a-half years ago.

Speed moved to Newcastle in a £5.5m deal following a fall-out with then-manager Howard Kendall, although he has always refused to explain why he demanded a transfer and pulled out of the squad for a Premiership game at West Ham.

The midfielder, a lifelong Everton fan, didn't kick another ball for the club and was the target of a torrent of abuse when he made his first return to Goodison with Newcastle nine months after his departure.

But current Everton boss Walter Smith is a huge admirer of Speed and is weighing up a move for the 30-year-old as he desperately seeks midfield reinforcements.

Don Hutchison, John Collins and Nick Barmby are all destined to leave and Smith has added Speed to a list of targets topped by Lens' £4.5m-rated Ghanaian star Alex Nyarko.

Smith is also keen on Sheffield Wednesday's Niclas Alexandersson and Leicester's Neil Lennon.

Meanwhile, newly-promoted Ipswich Town are poised with a £1m bid for Newcastle's transfer-listed winger Stephen Glass.

The Scottish international has been dogged by injury problems in the two years since he arrived from Aberdeen in a tribunal-fixed £650,000 deal.

l FORMER Newcastle goal hero Malcolm Macdonald believes Alan Shearer and new boy Carl Cort are a dream-ticket partnership in the making.

Cort, who linked up with his new teammates for the first time yesterday when United reported back for pre-season training, moved from Wimbledon in a £7m deal last week.

And Macdonald said: "I have the highest regard for Cort and I think he's an excellent signing. I really do believe he'll score a lot of goals for Newcastle.

"I believe he'll be a great asset and I think Cort and Shearer will compliment each other well.''

Shearer won't begin to work on his link-up with Cort until next week because the United skipper has been given an extra seven days' rest following his England exertions at Euro 2000.

Croatian misfit Silvio Maric returned for training yesterday to be read the riot act by manager Bobby Robson after his failure to join his colleagues on the end-of-season trip to Trinidad and Tobago.