Average appeal for help and love (2,2)
I believe the answer is:
so so
'average' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'appeal for help and love' is the wordplay.
'appeal for help' becomes 'sos' (I've seen this in another clue).
'and' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'love' becomes 'o' (love means zero in tennis).
'sos'+'o'='SO-SO'
(Other definitions for so so that I've seen before include "Ordinary" , "Indifferent" , "neither good nor bad" , "OK" , "Fair" .)