Whoops. Lino points one way, ref another

Premiership referee Martin Atkinson will not have been pleased with himself after a mix-up with his assistant had considerable consequences. In the Bolton v Villa match, Bolton, 1-0 up, saw the linesman award them a throw-in inside their own half. But Atkinson had spotted the ball coming off a Bolton player's leg and pointed the other way.
Bolton's players strolled casually upfield, sure that their player would take his time. But Villa were sharp and spotted the Bolton defence was out of position and took the throw quickly. Moments later the ball was in the net and Villa had a point.
The mistake here was that the assistant and referee failed in the basic premise of communicating with each other. Both would normally be keeping an eye on each other to see if one had a strong opinion. The referee is keeping his eye on a lot of things and it's really down to the linesman to keep an eye open for the referee making a ruling that he might not agree with. The linesman is then best advised to keep his own counsel and go with the ref's call, even if he thinks it's wrong. In this case the referee was right all along and the linesman confused matters.
I don't know if Atkinson blew his whistle, but he should have. It would have quickly alerted the Bolton players that something was up, giving them the chance to regroup quickly.