Control an aerial ball and finish. Cushion the first touch to set the ball down into your path, then compose a clean strike before it bounces away.
A server lofts a ball to the striker, who takes it out of the air with a cushioned chest or thigh touch to set it down, then finishes. Emphasise the quality of the first touch to kill the pace and set the shot, and a composed strike. Vary the serve. Rotate the striker and server.
Killing the pace on a dropping ball is the whole exercise, and once that touch is right the shot is the easy part. Which is why coaching the strike here is usually wasted effort: a striker who has just watched a bouncing ball run away from him did not have a shooting problem.
The control has to do two jobs at once, and that is what makes it difficult. It has to remove the pace, so the ball stays within playing distance, and it has to place the ball somewhere a shot is available, which means slightly ahead and to the side rather than underneath the body. Players who achieve only the first end up with a dead ball at their feet and a defender arriving.
Surface choice depends on height and should be automatic rather than deliberated. Above the chest, use the chest. Between waist and chest, the thigh. Below the waist, the inside or laces with the foot withdrawing on contact. In every case the surface gives as the ball arrives rather than meeting it firmly, which is what absorbs the pace.
The common error is letting it bounce first. A bouncing ball in the penalty area is unpredictable and slow, and it invites the defender who was three yards away to become the defender who is on top of you. Taking it out of the air is harder and almost always better.
Striking before it bounces is the standard worth setting, because a dropping ball controlled cleanly gives roughly one second, and the shot has to happen inside it.
Save it to your private drills, then change the animation, adjust positions, swap equipment, or drop it into a session block. Or start from a blank pitch and build your own.