After fracas, Keane not starting - best he's not there (8)
I believe the answer is:
absentee
'after fracas keane not starting best he's not there' is the definition.
The answer is a person as well as being a singular noun. This is suggested by the definition.
'not starting best he's not there' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'not' could be 'nt' (synonyms) and 'nt' is found in the answer.
'best' could be 'a' and 'a' is present in the answer.
'he' could be 'see' and 'see' is found within the remaining letters.
The remaining letters 'be' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for absentee that I've seen before include "Missing person" , "One who should be but isn't present" , "skiver" , "Person who should be present but isn't" , "shirker?" .)