It is tempting to wonder at times what the Premier League is supposed to be for. It's obviously well presented. It's great fun to watch. It has even been tightly fought this season at the top end. Plus, of course, the Premier League is extremely good at projecting itself for financial gain across every surface and into every available niche like wet sand on the beach, or an aggressive fungal foot infection. But still. What is it actually meant to be about?

There were a couple of slightly jarring moments along these lines this week. First the news broke that Micah Richards is unlikely to stay at Manchester City. It is a bit of a sad moment all round, and not just because Richards was once briefly but spectacularly the next big thing. He was bold and athletic and even quite dainty at times, romping about the place like a muscle-bound baby horse. At 17 he became the youngest defender to play for England. After which: not much. Richards played a bit. He still looked like a wonderful athlete and is clearly a nice, exuberant character. But the gearshift never came, the focus never narrowed.

He played 11 times for England as a teenager, and just twice in the past six years. But at 25 he still has time to come again, to become all the Micah Richards he can be. It is more of an issue for City, where Richards has been since the age of 14, and where he has a special significance as the only homegrown Englishman to play regularly since the boom years kicked in. City are trying to make this work and the academy may yet bear fruit. But for now it remains Micah or bust. And that thread is about to be cut.

Meanwhile David Moyes said what he was expected to say after defeat at Bayern Munich left Manchester United facing at least a year outside the Champions League. The plan was clear. Money would be spent. Big money. Players – big players, top players, big top players – were being lined up, with those rebuilding costs already climbing before our eyes. A while back £150m was being bandied about. This week that leapt to £200m. Then £300m. But why stop there? Why not £400m. Or £500m. Why not a billion? If the point of the Premier League really is to prove beyond all doubt that by spending enough money it is possible to employ human beings who are better than other, cheaper human beings at propelling a leather sphere into a netted rectangle, then there is no logical reason ever to stop spending. Or even to think about doing something else for a change.

This is not a criticism of City or of Moyes. It is instead a wider feature of the Premier League, which looks at times like a strangely barren field. This is a league that basically means nothing, producing the bare minimum of players, managers and hand-reared teams. Instead it can look sometimes like an elaborate piece of staging. We provide the fans, the heritage branding, the noise, the smell of mud. The rest of the world brings the ball.

Of the top teams Chelsea haven't produced a regular homegrown player since John Terry, who made his debut in 1998. United – who are, let's face it, all about the thrill of the homegrown – still have Danny Welbeck, Darren Fletcher and Ryan Giggs. Everton and Liverpool still produce players. Southampton provide a glorious example to the rest. Others chip in. But at the very top: almost nothing.

But then, why should the Premier League have any real interest in creating anything from within? Approaching its quarter-century, English football's top tier has become the most geographically non-specific of televisual products. In fact I can see no real reason why the whole thing couldn't in time be moved to China, where new stadiums could be built, huge crowds drawn, the branding retained, massive sponsorship attracted and no significant revenue or personnel supply lines interrupted.

Except, of course, that the Premier League is suffering on its own terms with this inability to refresh itself from within. If the sole point is to provide a winning product, Spain and Germany are winning that race, providing between them 11 of the past 16 Champions League semi-finalists.

This is obviously partly to do with wealth. But it also to do with methods and there is clear evidence that a spine of carefully nurtured home-reared players is what separates the very best from those who have just the outline or the deep pockets of an elite-level team, just as the current European champions are built around that enforced, academy-led spine of Thomas Müller, Toni Kroos, Philipp Lahm and Bastian Schweinsteiger.

In any case what are we supposed to make in the long term of an industry with revenues of £3bn that is essentially a gilded pop-up, with nothing to touch, or point to, or say: 'Look, we made these wonderful players, this thrilling, inspiring team that could not have existed otherwise.' I still remember the feeling of excitement at the talented group of players that emerged in the early Premier League years, a sense among the fizz and the puff of the new frontier that this was how these things were going to work now. A Paul Scholes every five years, regular Michael Owens scooting out from behind the skirting board, an occasional Micah Richards, fruits of a properly functioning system.

Sport has no wider story to tell if it doesn't at least attempt to express something of the cultures and systems behind it. Otherwise all that is being tested is the ability to spend. And how interesting is that, really?

Just imagine, for a moment if Moyes did say: "Hang it all, what we're going to do is pour our millions into youth development. We're going to trust in the system, our basic resources, the galvanising romance of this wonderful big-city club. We're going to source our own organic world-class stars and we'll be back to storm the Champions League with Davie's Ducklings – maybe not now, but soon."

It won't happen of course. It couldn't. Money won't let it. But just imagine if it did: the thrill of something tangible being built, the sense at last of some content beneath the glittering surface.

• This article was updated on 11 April, correcting 'occidental' to 'occasional'