The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 1 plus 3 plus 2 plus 1 plus 7 letter word A BIT OF A SQUEEZE
I've seen this crossword clue in The Guardian
A
B
I
T
O
F
A
S
Q
U
E
E
Z
E
Buddy explains!
The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.