Erling's header missing, anger behind City dugout? (4)
I believe the answer is:
lair
'dugout?' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'erling's header missing anger behind city' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'city' could be 'la' (Los Angeles) and 'la' is present in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for lair that I've seen before include "Place of seclusion (informal)" , "Earth" , "Study" , "Flashy man" , "beastly retreat" .)