There is a good argument that there are too many foreign players of dubious quality currently playing at the very top levels of the English game (Premier League and Championship). Blocking the path of British players reaching the very top level of their profession. It’s possibly an even more acute problem in the Scottish premiership.

There are 2 routes for a ‘foreign’ player into the English professional game. Either they have the right to live and work here under general government immigration rules - nothing to do with football. Or they need to obtain a work permit under a points-based system designed and administered primarily by the FA.

Latics currently have 3 players in the squad born outside Britain or Ireland. Fondop arrived in UK as a student and has subsequently obtained British citizenship. Daniels and Monthe arrived as children and if they haven’t subsequently acquired British citizenship, at least have ‘settled status’. Meaning that all 3 have the right to live and work in this country indefinitely, whether as a professional footballer or in any other line of work. I don’t think there is a serious argument that anyone who has the right to live and work here anyway (in whatever profession) shouldn’t be allowed to join a professional football club, if they are sufficiently talented.

There is an argument that the ‘points based’ rules (algorithm based on level of foreign league where they have previously played and international caps) for foreign players to obtain work permits are too lax. But in practice these very rarely apply at League 1 level or below. Since any player good enough to satisfy the work permit rules will invariably be too expensive to be within plausible reach of a club below Championship level. Its supply and demand.

The biggest culprits tend to be clubs turning over a large proportion of their playing squad following promotion from Championship to Premier league. I’m thinking particularly of Burnley and Sunderland recently. On promotion, stacking their squads with foreign players that few of us would have previously heard of. Opposite argument is that if this wasn’t allowed (to the same degree - by much stricter restriction of work permits), the Premier League would become even more of a ‘closed shop’ in practice.

Asides: both Fawunmi and Appiah-Forson are London lads. You only have to listen to their interviews to understand that they are English born & bred.

You don’t need to go back to Gunnar Halle’s days to find a Latics team starts with 6 or more foreigners of different varieties. That was not uncommon during the height (depth) of the Lemsagam era.
Example: October 2019 v Cheltenham: Started with 3 Englishmen (Hamer, Wheater & Smith) plus:
De La Paz Curacao
Iacovitti. Scotland / Italy
Egert. Czechia
Sylla. France / Ivory Coast
Missilou. Congo
Maouche. France / Algeria
Morais. Portugal
Segbe. Benin