Football equipment in need of inflation, puff air (6)
I believe the answer is:
ballad
'air' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both related to communication as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see a link between them that I can't see?
'football equipment in need of inflation puff' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'equipment' could be 'ball' (ball is a kind of equipment) and 'ball' is located in the answer.
'puff' could be 'ad' (short for advert - a puff piece is an advertisemen) and 'ad' is located in the answer.
No letters remain.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ballad that I've seen before include "Slow romantic song" , "Song type" , "delivered by singer" , "Love song" , "Form of verse" .)