Alvaro Morata struck for Milan before Nadir Zortea found an equaliser for the visitors.
“I expected much, much more in every area. Considering the quality of the squad at my disposal, the first half was probably the worst I’ve had in my 13 years as coach, to be honest,” Conceicao told Sky Italia.
“We lacked vivacity, the tempo was too slow, Cagliari had everyone in the final third to defend their goal, that is their strategy, but we should’ve done what we prepared to find those spaces. We were not smart enough to do that.
“The second half was better, we had 25 shots on goal, Cagliari started time-wasting, I realise this is the strategy in Italy, that’s not a problem, but the referee has to give more than five minutes of added time.
“This is not an excuse, nor is the fatigue from the Supercoppa, we should’ve done more, but these are still factors I cannot ignore.”
On reasons for the setback, Conceicao added: “It’s a bit of everything. It’s mentality, physique, a lot of work we need to do in order to improve, because there were spells in that game I did not like at all. A draw is dropping two points. I am angry because we didn’t do what we had prepared, so we need to do a lot of work.
“We didn’t have enough width or movement. Rafael Leao against two or three, he needs support and different movement from those to provide him with options. The same goes for Pulisic on the other side and the full-backs.”