Tirade to follow set of players losing lead in Fourth Division (8)
I believe the answer is:
quadrant
'fourth division' is the definition.
'tirade to follow set of players losing lead' is the wordplay.
'tirade' becomes 'rant' (I've seen this before).
'to follow' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'set of players' becomes 'squad'.
'losing lead' means to remove the first letter.
'squad' with its initial letter removed is 'quad'.
'rant' after 'quad' is 'QUADRANT'.
'in' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for quadrant that I've seen before include "Quarter of a circle or of its circumference" , "Segment of circle" , "Instrument" , "Quarter sector of circle" , "Fourth part of circumference" .)