In ascendant fashion United perform steadily, securing local division (8)
I believe the answer is:
upwardly
'in' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are adverbs.
Perhaps you can see a link between them that I don't see?
'ascendant fashion united perform steadily securing local division' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'united' could be 'u' (as in Man U, English football team) and 'u' is found in the answer.
'division' could be 'ward' (I have seen 'Division of borough ' mean 'ward' so perhaps 'division' could also mean 'ward') and 'ward' is found in the answer.
'perform' could be 'ply' (plying is a kind of performing) and 'ply' is located in the leftover letters.
No letters remain.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for upwardly that I've seen is " Likely to achieve a higher social position".)