Henry says his infamous miss-kicked penalty pass with Pires should have been retaken

Thierry Henry maintains that the penalty disaster between him and Robert Pires against Manchester City in 2005 should have been retaken.

Both Arsenal legends attempted to pass the ball to each other from the penalty spot, but it ended in a disaster.

Henry said they had been practising on the training ground for a long time and waited for the opportunity for them to show it off.

It came in their game against Manchester City and Pires was to pass the ball to an onrushing Henry.

However, the Frenchman fluffed his kick and didn’t even touch the ball before City defender, Danny Mills cleared it.

The Citizens were awarded a free kick, eventually. 

Remembering the episode recently, the former AS Monaco manager, insisted that the spot-kick should have been retaken because Pires actually didn’t touch the ball.

He then conceded that he should have been the one to pass the ball, as they have been practising much of the time.

‘That penalty should have been retaken, because the ball never moved from the spot,’ Henry told Sky Sports.

‘It didn’t, and I don’t know what the ref did or what Danny Mills was doing.

‘On that one, the only mistake I did was I didn’t do it. I should have passed it to Robert. We did it so many times in training, but in training everything is easy.

‘I thought the big man Robert wouldn’t have lost his composure. But he did. I don’t know why he tried to roll it.

‘If the goalkeeper went diving maybe I would have dummied it, but maybe I would have passed it back to Robert.’