Shaw wasn't a big loss for the, Chambers also. They have Clyne as RB, and they have found a reliable LB as it is the only thing you need till you start playing for big trophies. I sad this even before the start of the season. Shaw is young and we can see what mistakes he makes, but he will become great probably, but we do need to wait.
Lambert was quite easy to replace and they have bought to players to cover for Lambert and Lallana, two players from the same system, from the same league....
They had most of their new guy ready from the begging of the season, and their manager was there from the begging, while our was on WC duty, as far as I remember. But yes, they are playing well, no one can argue about that.
Now in our first 3 games we had only Herrera for about 60 minutes and di Maria also for 60min, that's it, plus we had Carrick injured (that's where I blame LVG, as he could have bought Blind earlier), and all of our defenders were injured the whole season, they can't gel as they don't play together. On top of that all of our forwards were out of form, not just missing chances, but playing badly. After that we started to play better. The Leicester game was bad (yes the referee had a huge impact, but still, we should have not lost like that), the WBA game wasn't great, but we were the better side and they have scored because of quite big mistakes from our full backs (that where the Shaw problem occurs, as he is young), not because of our system, while the Chelsea game was actually quite good.
After the 3rd round you could see that we have massively improved going forward, but we hat to many problems at the back, mostly because of injuries (we had 2 CB who made their debuts in the Premierleague).
Koemann started better, but you can't judge LVG and taking into accounts all the players we have bought, none of them played 9 games. Di Maria played 6 (not full), Herrera 5 (one he had to go off in the 60th minute, one he played injured and had to leave the field). Rojo played 6 (in two positions, with different partners), Blind played 6, Falcao played 5 (none of them for 90 minutes), plus other injuries (and there are plenty of them).