“I’m definitely against this rival approach,” says Spooner (2,4)
I believe the answer is:
no fear
'this rival approach says spooner' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I can't judge whether it can be defined by this definition.
'i'm definitely against' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'against' could be 'no' and 'no' is located in the answer.
The remaining letters 'fear' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for no fear that I've seen before include "Definitely not (informal)" , "Absolutely not" , "Informally, certainly not., who's afraid" , "Certainly not (informal)" , "Far one (anag.)" .)