It appears Unai Emery's patience with flaky Mesut Ozil has finally reached breaking point.
The Arsenal manager told Ozil to man up, get himself fully fit again and start delivering some decent performances to ensure a satisfactory ending to the season.
Ozil is the club's top earner on £350,000-a-week but is currently out of favour with Emery and has been absent from as many Arsenal teams this season as he has been selected for.
Speaking ahead of Arsenal's UEFA Europa League fixture with BATE Borisov on Thursday night, a match they enter a goal down from the first leg, Emery was clear in his message to the German.
'I asked him in our conversations to be consistent, to be available for us in training,' Emery said.
'When you can train with regularity, consistency, you can help us in the games. I looked at him in training and he is like we want. I know he wants it.
'But he needs to be consistent, to be available for training, for the matches.
'Without the injuries, without being sick. Like that, we can see the best Mesut with us. The key is in his hand.'
Whether Ozil will actually be involved against the Belorussians remains to be seen. His absences, for a variety of different reasons, have become a feature of Arsenal's season.
What has been clear since the turn of the year, as Arsenal have lost to West Ham and Manchester City in the Premier League, Manchester United in the FA Cup and BATE in the Europa League, is that they could do with Ozil back to his best.
Ozil, 30, missed his first match this season when illness ruled him out of Arsenal's 3-1 league win over West Ham at the end of August. This came after he was taken off for Aaron Ramsey in their 3-2 loss at Chelsea the week before.
He then featured in a number of games, even scoring against Newcastle and Watford, before being rested for the Carabao Cup tie with Brentford as Emery rotated his squad.
But, in a hint of things to come, Ozil suffered a back spasm and missed the 5-1 win at Fulham on October 7.
Earlier that week, he had flown four hours each way to Baku for the Europa League match against Qarabag, which had likely caused the problem or exacerbated an underlying one.
Ozil then played - and even captained - Arsenal for the league matches against Leicester, Crystal Palace, Liverpool and Wolves in October and November.
His significance to the team was such that Emery rested him for the Carabao Cup win over Blackpool and the European game against Sporting Lisbon so he could be fresh for league action.
Then things really started to unravel. He was left on the bench for the win at Bournemouth on November 25, with Emery making the curious comment that the physicality and intensity of the fixture weren't right for Ozil.
The playmaker was spared another long trip to Kiev for the match with Vorskla Poltava but then suffered a recurrence of the back spasm and that kept him out of three games in a week against Tottenham, Man United and Huddersfield.
Ozil returned for a couple of games but another sign that Ozil and Emery were not seeing eye-to-eye came when he was left out of the Carabao Cup game with Spurs because of tactical reasons despite supposedly being the club's top player.
Afterwards, Emery said: 'It was a tactical decision because I thought the players today with us was for us the best for this match.'
He returned to the side for the Christmas games against Burnley and Brighton, only to be taken off at half-time in the latter.
Ozil subsequently complained about pain in his knee during training and didn't take part in the 5-1 drubbing at Liverpool or the 4-1 win over Fulham.
In another ominous sign for the German, he returned to training ahead of the January 12 match at West Ham but was then omitted from the squad for the 1-0 loss at the London Stadium.
Asked to explain his decision, Emery said: 'I decided the idea of the players that I think are best for this match. We win with him, we lose with him. I think it is not one player [who decided if] we can't win or lose.
'Today the players who were here are the players who deserved to be in this match.'
Things went from bad to worse for Ozil, who was an unused sub in the matches against Chelsea and Man City, two of the biggest games of Arsenal's season.
He did manage to get off the bench in the FA Cup fourth round loss to Man United but failed to salvage the situation at 3-1 down.
Before Arsenal's game at Huddersfield on February 9, Ozil was filmed training with the squad yet didn't make the trip to Yorkshire due to yet another illness.
And though he was in training ahead of last week's first leg against BATE, he didn't make the trip to Belarus, raising yet more questions about his future.
It remains to be seen whether Emery's demands for more effort and consistency are heeded by Ozil.