Clever defence disheartened newspaper (4)
I believe the answer is:
deft
'clever' is the definition.
(deft means skilful or clever)
'defence disheartened newspaper' is the wordplay.
'disheartened' means to remove the middle letters (the middle or heart is removed).
'newspaper' becomes 'FT' (Financial Times newspaper).
'defence' with its centre removed is 'de'.
'de'+'ft'='DEFT'
(Other definitions for deft that I've seen before include "Quick, neatly skilful" , "Adroit, skilful" , "Quick and effective" , "Quick and skillful" , "'Skilful, quick and neat (4)'" .)