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Robert Pires has explained how a last-minute change of plan led to his and Thierry Henry's infamous penalty blunder. The French duo were two of the Premier League's biggest stars in the noughties but were left with egg on their faces in October 2005 when an audacious penalty attempt backfired. Looking to capitalise on a little-known rule in the Premier League clash with Man City, Pires attempted to pass his penalty kick to Henry who was running into the box. In theory, Henry would then have been able to slot the ball home from inside the area, but a mis-kick from Pires led to referee Mike Riley awarding Man City a free-kick. The routine - which was legal at the time - was famously done by Ajax legends Johan Cruyff and Jesper Olsen in 1982. But despite having grand plans for the audacious penalty, Pires spoke candidly about what went wrong. Speaking on The Obi Won Podcast, Pires said: “We practiced, we were practicing it the day before! “The game was on Saturday so Thierry and me practiced it on the Friday and we scored. “The problem was that during the game we changed positions. For me, that’s why it was strange. “I said, ‘no, no – I don’t want to change the positions’ and he said ‘yeah, we’ll change the position in the game’, so he got me in trouble and that’s why I missed the ball! ” Discussing how Man City were given a free-kick, Pires continued: "I didn’t touch the ball. "Normally, I’d have to repeat the penalty because I didn’t touch the ball, but the referee didn’t know the rules. “This is the problem because normally I’d have to repeat the penalty. “But it was my fault, my mistake! ” Asked how Henry responded to the penalty blunder after the match, Pires said: "He killed me. At the end of the game, he killed me. “But at the end of the game with Man City we won the game 1-0 and I scored the penalty so it was good history! ” Speaking in 2021, Henry gave Sky Sports his own version of events, saying: “That penalty should have been retaken, because the ball never moved from the spot. “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. ” This service is provided on talk SPORT Ltd's Terms of Use in accordance with our Privacy Policy.