Man with gong disheartened — in bits (9)
I believe the answer is:
piecemeal
'in bits' is the definition.
(in several pieces)
'man with gong disheartened' is the wordplay.
'man' becomes 'piece' (synonyms).
'with' says to put letters next to each other.
'gong' becomes 'medal' (gong can mean a prize or medal).
'disheartened' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters) (the middle or heart is removed).
'medal' with its centre taken out is 'meal'.
'piece'+'meal'='PIECEMEAL'
(Other definitions for piecemeal that I've seen before include "by degrees" , "step by step" , "Gradually, little by little" , "Bit by bit; unsystematic" , "Unsystematically" .)